Harry Potter and the Auburn Summer
by HarbingerofDeath5413276
Summary: HHr, set after OotP and thus slightly AU. Harry and Hermione spend the summer together in Muggle London and uncover a twenty year old mystery which involves Harry's parents and an event known as Auburn Summer. Completed!
1. Drills and thrills

Harry Potter knew something was up at the Dursley household, but he didn't really know how big of a something it was until they decided to have a family meeting and actually invited him. The last time they had done that had been when the Masons had arrived on Harry's twelfth birthday (along with a very unwelcome house elf named Dobby who ruined everything, although Harry got the blame, of course). It was likely that another "important", to Vernon Dursley that is, person was coming to visit. Harry tried hard to stifle his boredom at what would likely be a set of instructions to his Aunt Petunia and cousin Dudley on how to kiss up to whomever it was that had proven unlucky enough to end up here in the proper Dursley way, followed by consistent reminders of how he was to pretend to blend into the wallpaper. (But certainly not actually do so. That would be far too strange for the taste of his Aunt and Uncle.) 

Harry and the Dursleys had been rather successful at avoiding each other over the last few weeks; so much so that he actually didn't mind being here for once. Left to his own room, he was free from having other, older witches and wizards constantly reminding him of how Sirius' death wasn't his fault or how the debacle at the Ministry could have happened to anyone. Harry didn't need that right now. What he needed was some alone time and lots of space. For nearly three weeks now he had gotten it. It was only in the last few days, however, that his mourning period for Sirius felt like it was beginning to wane and even his spare non-Sirius thoughts no longer flung themselves automatically to the memory of Professor Trelawney's prophecy about what was supposed to transpire between him and Voldemort. The death of Sirius Black still saddened him and the prophecy worried him somewhat, but they now seemed to fill him with a sense of determination: to avenge Sirius and finally bring Voldemort's reign of terror to an end.

With the dramatic events of the wizard world from the end of the last school year swimming around in his head, Harry found it particularly difficult to concentrate on Vernon's impassioned speech about being normal, especially since he didn't seem to have to do anything or respond in anyway. It was rather like Professor Binns' History of Magic class, only Harry could just fantasize about his Uncle becoming a ghost. As he was imagining the fifteenth way he would prefer it to happen, Vernon Dursley's snarling face nearly met the tip of Harry's nose. "And just what will you be doing while the Farmers are here, Potter?" he snapped.

"Hiding in my room," Harry answered quickly with a half-yawn. Apparently his boredom annoyed Uncle Vernon, as he made his nephew repeat the answer. He then looked expectantly at Harry, as if willing him to continue. "In my closet." Vernon then made an angry rolling gesture with his hands. "Under a pile of Dudley's old winter coats." Harry paused only for a moment, waiting to see if that was enough to satisfy the Dursleys. It wasn't. He let out a slow sigh of defeat. "Making no noise and pretending I don't exist."

"Yes," Vernon replied slowly, his face flushed as red as a beetroot. "Be thankful I've decided not to gag you. Just in case you are, by some unhappy accident, discovered, I don't want your oral hygiene to be in doubt. We have clean teeth in this family!" As if on cue, Petunia and Dudley smiled very wide, showing off so many of their teeth at once that even Gilderoy Lockhart would be impressed. They had apparently been practicing this routine. As Harry's stomach turned, Vernon continued. "Very good, very good. This could be a very big deal, the biggest since…since…since you," he pointed a shaking finger at Harry, "starting going to that blasted school of yours!" His eyes then turned to the ceiling and his hands folded behind his back. Uncle Vernon's anger began to turn to greed more quickly than usual. "Yes, I can see it now. Dentist's drills: the future of Grunnings!"

Apparently, the British Dental Association would be working out some kind of deal with Grunnings where they became one of maybe four or five companies who supplied drills officially sanctioned by the BDA to British dentists. The details of it made Harry long for Potions homework as an escape, but as it seemed a big deal to the Dursleys, Harry took the opportunity of his Uncle's long rambling diatribe to make his way up the stairs, into his room and into his closet. As he plopped down on the floor, he wrapped himself in about six of Dudley's winter coats, which formed a sort of pup tent around Harry's body. Smiling as he leaned his head back on one of his cousin's old ratted fur hoods, he decided that the situation was not as bad as it might have seemed to someone unfamiliar with how Harry's "adopted" family had treated him since he was an infant. The closet in this room wasn't much smaller than the cupboard underneath the stairs, Dudley's winter coats were comfortable and they sometimes even contained snacks that were still edible. Besides that fact, two summers ago Harry had managed to use a faulty drill Uncle Vernon brought home from work as a "present" for his nephew's birthday to drill some peepholes in the closet so that he could now see downstairs into the hallway, the dining room and the kitchen. That meant that if anything interesting did happen with the Farmers, he would likely know about it and of course be able to tease Dudley mercilessly about it afterwards.

Looking down into the dining room, Harry saw Uncle Vernon grab Aunt Petunia by the shoulders. He considered turning away in revulsion, thinking they were about to kiss. However, with the typical Gryffindor spirit of bravery, Harry looked closer and discovered that he was merely trying to boost her confidence about something. "Don't worry, Petunia. I know how you feel about dentists, but it will all be over soon. With you and our Ickle Duddykins turning on the charm, we'll win them over in no time. And besides, it was only a movie."

The curiosity of "Ickle Duddykins" was for once a great help to Harry. "What was only a movie?" he asked in an extremely rude tone of voice. It was the exact same question that sprang to Harry's mind, but he quickly dismissed the notion that this somehow meant that he and Dudley thought alike.

"M…Marathon Man," Aunt Petunia stammered as she muted a sob. Harry wasn't sure he had seen that one, but whatever it was it didn't sound scary. With Vernon squeezing her arm for support, she seemed to pull herself together, although with great effort. "Horrible creatures, dentists. Horrible."

Harry chuckled softly to himself. "Oh yeah, dentists are monstrous. Worse than dementors, they are." Thinking back to his childhood, this attitude of Aunt Petunia's suddenly made Dudley's (and, by default, his) trips to the dentist a lot more understandable. The Big 'D' always received a large package of suckers for braving the dentists' chair and even Harry got a few (the grape ones that Dudley didn't like). He then wondered idly what Hermione's parents would think of Mrs. Dursley's dentist fears. With both of them being in the profession, they probably ran across it from time to time. 'Hey, I wonder if the Farmers might know them,' Harry asked himself, but decided not to risk the wrath of his Uncle Vernon by sneaking downstairs sometime during the course of the evening to try and find out.

Harry heard the loud buzz of the doorbell and, grabbing a small box of raisins that he was surprised Dudley hadn't simply thrown in the trash out of one of the larger pockets, turned his attention solely onto the peephole that allowed him to see the hallway. As Vernon made last minute adjustments to their clothes (they wouldn't dare make a first impression with a wrinkle showing, other than in Aunt Petunia's scrawny neck) and made sure that all of them had big smiles affixed to their faces, he opened the door. "Good evening, Mr. Farmer, Mrs. Farmer," he said as he shook each of their hands with ferocity. Uncle Vernon then barely seemed to stop himself from gasping as he continued looking out the doorway at what was presumably a third figure in the doorway. "And I see you've brought your little girl along with you. How… unexpected."

The familiar-looking man in a dapper-looking gray business suit replied with a large smile. "Yes, well, we heard you had a boy about her age and thought maybe they might get along smashingly." Both of the middle-aged couple's faces had turned red upon their introduction to the house. Harry got the distinct impression that this wasn't going well so far for the Dursleys.

How right he was. Aunt Petunia barely had time to ask the young girl her name when she bellowed out in the haughtiest voice she could manage. "It's Hermione. Hermione Granger. That's our last name, you see. Not 'Farmer'." Harry's mouth fell wide open. All of the Dursleys looked sheepish except for Dudley, who always looked too massive to be a sheep. He did, however, look a bit like a stunned hippopotamus.

"It's an honest mistake," Vernon Dursley insisted as he invited the Grangers to sit down in the dining room. "Farmer, Granger… they're synonyms, really. And I've always said, haven't I, Petunia, that farmers are the backbone of this country. Couldn't get any food grown without them."

Harry wasn't really paying attention to the awkwardness going on between the Grangers and the Dursleys; he was too busy focusing on Hermione. What was she doing here? She was surely here to see him, wasn't she? And if so, was this deal between the British Dental Association and Grunnings merely a sham, orchestrated by Dumbledore or someone else in the Order of the Phoenix? Harry shuddered to think of how many shades of purple his uncle's face would turn if that turned out to be the case.

Losing himself in his thoughts, Harry nearly lost sight of Hermione, as she forcefully grabbed Dudley's hand and escorted him from the room. He still seemed to be in shock; otherwise, Hermione's petite frame never could have moved his great bulk out of the dining room short of a very powerful levitation spell. They walked into the hallway, only a few feet away from his former home underneath the stairs. Harry shifted his position within the closet so that he could see what they were doing.

Unfortunately it was difficult to hear, because Uncle Vernon was telling a rather loud and obnoxious version of his new Polish barber joke. He only caught brief snatches of their conversation, but it seemed to boil down to Hermione feeling Dudley's "muscles", if that was indeed what they were, saying that he certainly did look like the type to be good at boxing, and oh, if only there were someone here that he could pummel, she would really be impressed. A light bulb seemed to go off over Dudley's head, but Hermione was definitely the one who put it there. Harry grinned broadly at her cleverness.

As the unlikely duo bounded up the staircase, Harry quickly turned around to face the closet door, which would no doubt be opening any moment now. Wiping a very amused grin off of his face, he did his best to look disinterested and started practicing feigned surprise at Dudley opening the door. However, Harry soon realized that Dudley would technically be coming to beat him up, and genuine worry overcame him. Before he had too much time to think on it, the door opened wide and his gargantuan cousin lifted him out of the closet.

"So this is your insane cousin who lives with you," Hermione said in a voice that was both pompous and apathetic as she pretended to look Harry over disparagingly. His breath caught in his throat as his legs dangled mere inches from the floor. "He doesn't look very tough."

"Oh, he is," Dudley Dursley sneered as his meaty right hand finally released Harry's now very stretched gray t-shirt. "He goes to St. Brutus' you know, and that's a school for the hopelessly criminal. He has to be able to take a few punches every now and then." Dudley then gave Harry what seemed like it might have been a pleading look similar to the one he gave Dobby four years ago. 'Don't get me in trouble,' it seemed to say. Harry gave a slight nod. He wasn't about to make any sort of disturbance that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would pay attention to, as it would most likely be him getting in trouble and not Dudley.

Stealing a quick, slightly amused glance at Hermione, Harry put up his hands to fight just as Dudley did. However, neither of them wanted to be the one to throw the first punch. Dudley knew he could take Harry in a "fair" Muggle fight, but was afraid of what his cousin might do to him later if he did. Meanwhile, Harry wasn't exactly sure what Hermione's game was and decided to see if she was planning on doing something here. After a few minutes, the aforementioned Ms. Granger let out a dramatic yawn and pretended as though she were about to leave the room when Dudley promptly sucker punched Harry (whose eyes had inexplicably been following Hermione despite the fact that his brain knew she wasn't really going to leave him alone with Dudley). The pain in his stomach was nothing he hadn't felt before, but it did succeed in knocking him off of his feet. Unfortunately, as he fell to the floor, his head crashed into the table which held Hedwig's cage. Harry's pet owl crashed with a loud metallic clang to the floor and let off an awful stream of squawks.

All three teenagers froze. The noise was sure to have been heard downstairs. The expressions on the faces of Dudley and Harry were particularly fearful, as they could only imagine too well Uncle Vernon bounding up the stairs in a furious rage. "Goodness me. Knocking over an owl cage. That will take some explaining, won't it? Particularly since most people don't have owls in cages." Hermione smirked at Harry as she stooped to look at his head. "I guess you'll be the one to have to go and do it," she declared with a quick glance towards Dudley.

"Me?" Dudley asked in panic. "Why me? Why not you… or him?"

Hermione gave out an exaggerated sigh. "Honestly, do you expect me to explain to my parents why you two created a disturbance? And as for this one," she turned back to look at Harry's forehead, "I don't think he should be getting up soon. He's got a nasty bump here. And look at this cut. It's shaped like a lightning bolt!"

"He didn't get that scar just now," Dudley tried to explain. "He's always…" He stopped as he heard his father starting up the stairs. "Oh, never bloody mind. Never send a freak or a girl to do a man's job." As Dudley stepped out the door, he apparently caught sight of Uncle Vernon. "Daddykins!" he cried. "I…I can explain." Cries of pain escaped his lips as the two of them appeared to be making their way downstairs.

"Might get some ice for this bump while you're down there," Hermione called after him. Once she was sure Dudley could no longer hear them, she burst into fits of raucous laughter. After a moment, Harry followed suit, then remembered his bump and put his hand to his forehead in pain. Hermione took off the light pink jacket she'd been wearing and put it between Harry's head and the wall. "Comfy?" she asked, as she picked up Hedwig's cage and, taking the time to smooth her feathers, placed her back upon the table.

"Oh yes," Harry answered sarcastically. "I feel practically pampered now." However, he couldn't stay even a little mad for very long. He had been starved for company since having left Hogwarts and seeing Hermione at the Dursleys was such a wonderful surprise he could barely keep the smile from his face for more than a few seconds. Harry stood slowly and attempted to make it to his bed. "How are you, Hermione?" he asked with genuine concern in his voice.

"Well, none of us that were at the Ministry of Magic are exactly doing cartwheels," Hermione started to answer, but then stopped herself abruptly and slapped her hand across her mouth. "Oh, Harry! I'm so sorry! That's just been the answer I've been giving everyone…my parents, teachers checking up on me and everything, I didn't even think…"

"It's OK," Harry interrupted as he gently lowered his head onto the lumpy pillow provided him by the Dursleys. "I was an idiot. Sirius is dead. His killer will get what's coming to her, as will Voldemort." Whether what was coming to Voldemort was the evil wizard's death or his own was still a matter of debate in Harry's mind, but he wasn't ready to let Hermione know about that yet.

"Well, whatever happens, they won't be sent to Azkaban," Hermione replied, trying to change the subject somewhat. She reached inside one of the pockets of her jeans and removed a newspaper article. Harry scanned over it quickly; apparently the dementors had proven too untrustworthy and the wizard prison had been temporarily decommissioned. Felonious wizards and witches were being held in special cells outside the grounds for the time being.

Once he had read everything of interest, Harry looked at the top of the newspaper. This wasn't The Daily Prophet or The Quibbler, it was a new one he had never heard of before. "What kind of newspaper is The Phoenix Fire?" Harry questioned.

"It was started by the Order to keep its members informed," she answered with a knowing look toward Harry. Hermione remembered well how frustrated he had been at being kept out of the loop throughout last summer. "Even now that the truth is out about Voldemort, Dumbledore decided the Daily Prophet just isn't reliable enough to get the full truth out now that there's a war on. Besides, it gives Professor Lupin something constructive to do." Harry's eyes fell upon the name of the editor: R. L. Moony. "As for what else the Order is up to, that's sort of why I'm here."

Harry nodded ever so slightly. "I thought so. No sane person would brave a visit to the Dursleys without having a good reason for it." Hermione looked surprisingly noncommittal. "So come out with it. Why did they decide to send you here?"

"So that I could be your girlfriend," Hermione answered with a sly smile.


	2. Making a list, checking it twice

Harry let out a loud nervous cough. Hermione wanted to be his girlfriend? When did this happen? "Um, Hermione…don't I get a say in this?"

"Oh, of course," she replied, the smile never leaving her face and wry amusement slowly creeping into her voice. "I suppose if you want to stay locked up with the Dursleys all summer instead of spending almost every day exploring London with me, you can. I certainly won't stop you."

Harry put his hand to his forehead in frustration. "Hermione, what are you going on about?"

Hermione let out a gentle laugh as she decided to let Harry in on the joke. "Dumbledore wants us to spend most of the summer in London, and Muggle London at that," Hermione explained patiently. "He says it's because he thinks Voldemort might be planning something there, but honestly I think he just wants you to have a pleasant holiday over the summer for once."

Harry's eyes immediately brightened. He would have something to do this summer, something fun for once other than just a once-in-a-lifetime thing like watching the Quidditch World Cup (and even that had involved Death Eaters). But there was still a nervous lump in his throat, because…well… "So what was that bit about you being my girlfriend?"

Mischief danced in Hermione's eyes. "Well, we'll have to tell the Dursleys something about why we're spending so much time together, won't we? Do you think they'll believe that we struck up such an intimate friendship with each other in one day that we can hardly stand to be apart from each other?"

Harry thought it over quickly in his mind. The Dursleys would never let him out of the house just to spend time with a friend, but with a "girlfriend", especially one who was the daughter of two very important clients… "I think it might work. That is if this dentist drill deal is for real."

Hermione nodded. "Mum and Dad had to pull some strings to be the ones to negotiate the deal, and it helped that they knew all about the Dursleys from what I had told them. Of course, these sorts of things take time to work out." That coy smile still hadn't left her face.

Harry broke out into a large grin of his own. "You don't think it would take all summer, do you?" Hermione might have been way ahead of him at first, but he was slowly catching up.

"I think it might," Hermione replied with a knowing laugh. 'It is nice to see Hermione,' Harry thought to himself as an odd sort of feeling came over him. 'But since when is she so much fun?' As if she had read his thoughts, Hermione suddenly turned serious. "Now, I suppose it's time to get started on our project."

"What project?" Harry asked reflexively. They didn't have their books for next term yet; how could they already have homework? Harry groaned inwardly. When it came to Hermione and homework, anything was possible.

"Why, we have to figure out what drew us together, of course," Hermione answered in a matter-of-fact tone that turned Harry's mood from frustration to amusement. She withdrew a large piece of parchment and a quill from her pocket. "I made up a checklist on the way over here. Just some random thoughts that popped into my head."

Harry snatched the list away from her when she wasn't looking and began reading aloud from it in disbelief. "'Cricket?' 'Young men's fashions?' 'British foreign diplomacy?'" Harry shot an incredulous look at Hermione. "I know the Dursleys are a bit thick, but I don't think they'd believe I actually knew anything about any of this."

"They were just suggestions," Hermione pointed out defensively, her face suddenly going slightly red.

Even though he knew he had already embarrassed Hermione, Harry couldn't help but read further. As he neared the end, he burst out into hysterical laughter. "Oh, this one has got to be my favorite. 'Dissecting owl pellets.'"

"Hey, I actually thought that one was fairly clever," Hermione replied indignantly. "The dissection of owl pellets is something that's done in biology in some Muggle schools and you do have an owl, you know. It could have come up in conversation."

Harry had doubled over in laughter, forgetting temporarily about the pain in his forehead. Hermione folded her arms and contorted her face into a pout. "And I suppose you just have a brilliant plan to convince the Dursleys we're madly in love."

"Well, we could just snog like mad and act secretive all the time," Harry threw out, still laughing as he said it. "That's what most couples our age do."

"Very funny," Hermione chided him, her expression icy. Harry finally composed himself long enough to notice that Hermione really did seem to have hurt feelings over what he had said.

"Hermione," Harry said with what he hoped was reassurance as he wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. "If you tell the Dursleys you're interested in going out with me, they're not going to care why. As long as you're seen as an important part of Uncle Vernon's business deal, they'll let you have whatever you want. Including me." Hermione seemed to be slightly placated by this, but still turned away from Harry as he attempted to look her in the eyes. "You could probably even tell them that you want me to be your personal butler for the summer and they'd only ask what colour you wanted my tuxedo to be."

Hermione rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "I could see that happening. 'Potter, fetch my slippers.' 'Potter, brew me a spot of tea.' 'Potter, bring me the latest edition of Hogwarts: a History.'" Harry and Hermione both had a good chuckle at that. Hermione couldn't bring herself to order around a house elf; he couldn't imagine her trying to order around a human being (unless it was one of her fellow classmates around exam time). "Alright, you know the Dursleys better than I do." She picked up the checklist with a sigh. "Still, if we needed a back up plan…"

Harry turned his eyes reluctantly back to the list. "Well, I don't think I can even pretend to be interested in the Russian ballet," Harry began. 'That was probably Viktor Krum's favorite,' Harry mused to himself. "So we better just stick with the owl pellets." Hermione looked at him with a 'get real' expression on her face. Harry grinned widely. "Or maybe we'll just say that we're both interested in owls. The pellets make me kind of nauseous, anyway. No offense, Hedwig." Harry's owl shook its head haughtily in reply.

Harry and Hermione both suddenly heard the heavy footsteps of Dudley Dursley coming up the stairs. "So it's settled then," Hermione said very loudly. "We'll call ourselves the Society for the Protection of Owls and Other Nocturnal Species."

Harry screwed up his face with a scoff. "We're calling ourselves SPOONS?"

Hermione shot Harry a very serious look. "No, not SPOONS. S.P.O.O.N.S." As Dudley Dursley opened the door to Harry's room, she planted a large wet kiss on Harry's cheek. "Wonderful. I can't wait for our first meeting."

Harry was a bit stunned, but managed to turn around in time to see Dudley staring wide-eyed at the two of them. Hermione cheerfully bounded past him as his massive bulk of a cousin stood dumbfounded, stammering like mad. He was so flustered he hadn't even noticed that he'd dropped a bag of ice on his foot. "You…her…I… DADDYKINS"

"Ha," Uncle Vernon snorted as he paced up and down the hallway of the Dursley house. Harry had gotten as good at reading his uncle's moods as Professor Trelawney was at reading tea leaves, although his predictions had a much better chance of coming true. Vernon Dursley cast another fleeting glance at the door. The sun was shining brightly through the window, inviting Harry to go outside, to escape the Dursleys for the day, to live a little for once. "Ha," repeated Uncle Vernon imperiously, as if attempting to dash Harry's hopes with one syllable. His eyes squinted at Harry suspiciously. "Ha."

Harry Potter felt somewhat emboldened by the plans that he and Hermione had made the night before and allowed himself a tiny smirk. "What's so funny, Uncle Vernon?" he asked with mock innocence in his voice.

"Funny!" Uncle Vernon retorted with a curious sort of mild anger in his voice. "Oh, something's funny alright, Potter. This… this… thing with you and the Granger girl." Harry fought hard not to let the smile on his face get any bigger. "No sensible girl could see you and Dudley in the same night and choose to pursue you." He was losing the fight. 'I have to keep a straight face,' Harry thought as he forcibly contorted his face into what looked like a grimace. "You must have put some sort of curse on her. I insist that you undo it this instant, before she shows up here, makes a fool of herself over you and then goes home crying to her parents all the while telling them what awful people we are!"

"But Uncle Vernon," Harry managed to squeak through suppressed laughter, "I'm not allowed to do magic away from Hogwarts. You know that." There were times Harry had wished his surrogate family hadn't known that, but today wasn't one of them.

"Yes," Vernon Dursley said slowly as he looked Harry over like something disgusting that had just turned up on his rug. "I suppose you would have gotten one of those birds if you had done something unusual." He then tugged at his moustache, considering the situation again carefully. "She must be a weird sort then, like you. Into strange things like protecting owls." He then seemed to forget that Harry was there, muttering something about how there was a reason that owls had talons.

"I wouldn't want to go out with someone you didn't approve of, sir," Harry managed to say, maintaining not only a straight face, but the customary look he gave when he was trying to get out of something he didn't want to do. He was very impressed with himself. "I'll just call and cancel our date!"

"You'll do no such thing!" his uncle yelled loudly. His face had gone purple again, usually not a good sign. "You will make this work, Potter! I have a lot riding on this. Now get upstairs and get changed." As Harry began to rush up the stairs, Uncle Vernon stopped him. "I had Petunia launder some of Dudley's nicer clothes. They may be a bit loose on you, but first impressions count, you know." Harry suppressed a groan. If he wore Dudley's clothes on a real first date, her first impression would be that he had no idea how to wear proper clothing. Luckily, Hermione probably wouldn't mind him changing into something a little more comfortable at some point during the day. Before taking on the odious task of slipping into yet another set of second-hand clothing, he picked out some casual clothes that he might slip into once Uncle Vernon wasn't around.

Trying his best not to feel ridiculous wearing Dudley's suit, Harry packed his clothes and a few other things in a small knapsack and waited for Hermione to show up. She hadn't bothered to inform him of when or how she was coming, but he knew it wouldn't be by any sort of magical transport, as that would kill any chance the two of them had of pulling this off. As the doorbell rang, Harry rushed to answer it before his uncle could. Hermione stood at the door wearing a pink and grey t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans and looking a lot more like a normal teenager than he did. "Oh, Harry," Hermione said with a mock scowl. "I thought you of all people would know how to wear muggle clothes."

"I do," hissed Harry in a softer voice as his Uncle Vernon slowly approached from the living room. "It's my aunt and uncle who are convinced I can wear anything that Dudley can." Hermione let out a small laugh as Vernon Dursley approached the door.

"Come in, young lady," Vernon greeted her warmly. He put on a large fake smile that fooled neither of them. "Would you like something to drink? Tea, perhaps? I'm sorry my wife isn't here, pressing engagement you know. Dudley's needed a new computer for ages, can't really see how he's gone this long without one. They've gone to…"

"Why is he dressed like that?" Hermione demanded frankly as she made a waving gesture at the outfit of Dudley's that Harry appeared to be swimming in.

"Like that?" Vernon replied, taken aback by her question and tone. "Why I…" He stopped himself abruptly, remembering his manners (and, quite probably, his business deal). "…don't know. I said he could wear whatever he wanted, why he would choose that, well I just haven't the foggiest… Potter, go upstairs and change this instant! You'll have to make some allowances for him, my dear, he doesn't get out much."

'And whose fault is that?' thought Harry bitterly. "Uh, miss," he said as he cleared his throat to get Hermione's attention away from the contemptuous glare of his Uncle Vernon. "I've brought a change of clothes in my knapsack, just in case this outfit wasn't appropriate for whatever it is we're doing. I think they'll be more acceptable to your tastes."

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. "Very thoughtful. Although I didn't think I'd see you stripped down to your knickers quite this soon in our relationship." Harry's jaw very nearly dropped. His uncle turned a shade of purple Harry hadn't seen yet.

"Offyougothen," Uncle Vernon muttered as he literally pushed the two of them out the door. Harry's face was beet red and both of them seemed to have a contagious case of the giggles. He didn't believe he'd seen anyone treat Vernon Dursley that way and get away with it. As Harry's laughter died out, he thought about how much he had laughed over the last two days. This was probably the most fun he'd had on Privet Drive without magic. Who'd have thought that Hermione…

"Hop on," Hermione said suddenly as Harry realized just how lost in thought he had become. Her request didn't make sense until Harry took a good look at their mode of transport: a moped, mint green in colour, that looked brand new. As Harry's eyes ran up and down it, he noticed that Hermione was wearing a matching green helmet and holding another one out for him to wear with an amused smile on her face. "Sorry I didn't get one twelve sizes too large for you to go with the rest of your outfit."

"Very funny," Harry replied as he fastened the helmet to his head. "Whenever we reach someplace private, I'll change." Making sure his oversized pants legs didn't get caught in anything vital, he climbed onto Hermione's moped and they took off towards London. 


	3. Is it too late to ask Katie Bell?

Having never ridden in any kind of Muggle vehicle other than a car before, Harry Potter took in the experience with a small sense of wonder. The wind wafting across his face invigorated Harry, as the early summer morning came up slowly around him. Hermione had picked a circuitous route which seemed to take them past a picturesque stretch of woods. He barely even noticed (or maybe he didn't care) how physically close he and Hermione had to be to ride this thing and that his hands had found themselves attached rather firmly to her midsection.

Harry put his head closer to hers so that he could yell a question at her, but she couldn't hear him over the combined sounds of the engine and the wind. As they came upon a clearing in the woods, Hermione pulled the moped over to the side and parked it in a patch of dirt a few feet from the main road. "There, this should be secluded enough," she declared.

"For what?" asked Harry quizzically.

Hermione took one last contemptuous look at his oversized outfit. "Well, for you to change clothes for one thing," she said in a playful tone of voice.

"Out here? In the middle of a forest?" Harry asked incredulously as he looked at Hermione as though she had temporarily gone mad.

"There's a nice big tree you can change behind back there," she said, pointing to a large gray willow about twenty metres away. Harry was still looking at her as though she might sprout another head. "I won't look. And really, the fewer people who see you looking like that, the better."

Harry didn't put up any more of a fight, trudging slowly through the forest as he held his overflowing trouser legs up until he reached the willow tree in question. Disrobing quickly (and privately thinking that a Girl Scout troupe was likely to be tramping through here at any moment to laugh at him in only his boxers), he almost missed Hermione asking him a question.

"So what was it you wanted to ask me before?" Hermione asked. Having not yet put on his jeans, Harry stole a quick glance at her to make sure she wasn't looking before he answered.

"I wanted to know when you got the moped," Harry said as he did a delicate balancing act to put his trousers on while staying hidden behind the tree.

"Last summer. I couldn't actually take it out on the road until my sixteenth birthday, of course, but my parents got tired of escorting me to the library all of the time and taught me how to drive it last year." Hermione stole a quick look at Harry to check on his progress and turned around quickly again with a blush as she saw he was no longer hiding behind a tree and while his jeans were on, he had not yet put on a shirt. "I could, uh, teach you to drive it later on, if you'd like."

"Wow, free driving lessons from Hermione," Harry replied with a chuckle as he came jogging out of the woods. Now that Harry did have a shirt on, Hermione saw that it was navy blue with a Manchester United logo on it. "And it's not even my birthday."

"That reminds me," Hermione said as she put her right index finger up to tell Harry to wait on her a moment. "I do have an early birthday present for you." She ran over to a tree not far from the one Harry had used to change behind, emerged with a long, thin parcel and handed it to Harry. "Open it," she instructed.

A large grin coming across his face, Harry tore open the package with vigor. When he saw what it contained, a look of surprise came over his face. It was a Nimbus 2000, just like the first broom he had owned. "Thanks, Hermione. But…you know I already have a Firebolt."

"Of course I do," Hermione replied, a little flustered by his reaction. "I just thought you might like a broom you were familiar with to practice on. That's why we're here, you know. My guess is your aunt and uncle don't exactly let you practice quidditch in their back yard." Harry merely stared at her. She brought him here so he could take quidditch practice? "I'm sorry I couldn't get a better broom, but I didn't exactly make a fortune working part time at the library this summer."

Guilt overcame Harry suddenly. Hermione had been trying to do something nice for him, and he was being a complete jerk to her about it. "You don't have to apologize, Hermione," Harry assured her. "I was way out of line. This is all a very wonderful surprise. I can't thank you enough." She gave him a shy smile as her eyes seemed to dart to his shoes for some reason.

"You can thank Dumbledore too, when you see him," Hermione told him meekly. "He was the one who enchanted this stretch of forest so no muggles would come upon you flying around on a broomstick by accident and," she reached into her pocket and withdrew a small sphere, "he transfigured a hummingbird into this practice snitch." A blue and silver flying ball left Hermione's hand and flew to Harry's, as if it that was where it naturally belonged.

A dark and bitter feeling passed over Harry as he heard Dumbledore's name, but he wasn't going to let Hermione know about it. "Neat trick," he replied, his eyes never leaving the odd-looking snitch. "So is anyone else going to show up and practice or is it just going to be me up there, chasing the snitch all by myself?"

"If I had known you needed the competition, I would have seen if Cho Chang or Draco Malfoy had any plans," Hermione replied frostily.

"Come off it, Hermione," Harry said dismissively, not quite getting why she was irritated with him now. He had said he was sorry for how he had treated her earlier. What more did she want? "Of course I didn't want you to invite Cho or Draco! They're the last people I'd want to see away from Hogwarts. I was thinking more about the Weasleys. Ron and Ginny are going to be on the team this year, aren't they? It might be worthwhile to practice with them, especially with Ginny trying for a new position and Ron being so hit-or-miss as a Keeper last year."

Hermione stopped being angry for a moment to let a quick look of regret come over her face. "I'm sorry, Harry. Dumbledore's put a lot of restrictions on members of the Order. We're to stay in small groups at all times, as small as possible." Harry shot Hermione a look of frustration. "The Weasleys are barely allowed to leave the Burrow because so many of them are in the Order and I'm afraid they're not allowed any visitors."

"That doesn't make sense!" Harry exclaimed in anger. "If Death Eaters attack in force there's no way a small group would survive. Even those who can apparate…"

"Harry," Hermione began to interrupt.

"…can't really protect the ones who can't and what if Voldemort shows up? Has he even thought about…"

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed. "Perhaps you should save this for when you actually see Dumbledore rather than waste all of your good complaints on me." She put a hand firmly on his broom and shoved it towards his chest. "Go practice quidditch. I'll be out here with some light reading," she indicated five thick tomes she was pulling from her own knapsack.

Harry smiled knowingly at her. Of course she had brought books along. "Thanks for doing this, Hermione. I know you're not the biggest quidditch fan ever."

"No, but I am a loyal Gryffindor," Hermione reminded him somewhat sternly, sounding for all the world like a miniature Professor McGonagall. "And we can't have our new Quidditch Captain go all summer without practicing, can we?"

Harry's head was spinning. Did she just say what he thought she said? Harry stared at her for a moment, and then he did the first thing that came to mind. He ran towards Hermione and pulled her into a gigantic bear hug.

Harry Potter had spent his first few minutes in the air whooping and shouting, weaving his new broom this way and that and tossing stones into the air and catching them effortlessly. He felt as though he could take the Irish National team all by himself. He had made Quidditch Captain. Looking back on it logically, Harry supposed it made sense; only he and Katie Bell had been on the team since his first year and Katie hadn't talked much about wanting to be captain, but of course that didn't mean anything and oh, who cares about this logic stuff! 'I've been made Quidditch Captain!' Harry's brain shouted.

After a few more minutes of glorious celebration, Harry noticed a fluttering in his pocket. It was the snitch, seemingly bouncing around in there, anxious to get out and get started. Feeling obliging, Harry withdrew the strangely-coloured snitch from his trouser pocket and let it fly away. He then decided to give it a moment to get a decent head start and then swooped down, following its path and the game was on. Harry spotted the snitch gliding through a patch of deciduous trees and set out in pursuit.

Over an hour later, Harry was still chasing the snitch without success. He had gotten his hands on it three times already, but each time it had managed a daring escape. Once, the snitch flew into his face just as he was trying to pull out of a dive, nearly sending Harry and his new broom crashing to the ground (he wouldn't have appreciated having to explain to Hermione how that happened). Now he was chasing the snitch through a row of pines as it weaved around each one. After a few minutes, Harry had to take himself out of the hunt; he was getting too dizzy to fly.

A second hour passed and Harry now felt as though he would have trouble taking on a first year Hufflepuff practice team, much less the Irish national squad. Finally catching sight of the snitch again, Harry saw that it had now flown high up in the air and had to rise dramatically to keep pace with it. As he moved closer to it, he began to notice that the little ball was moving them away from the area that Dumbledore had enchanted. Steeling himself, he willed his broom to go faster so that he might catch up to the snitch before it could escape forever. Leaning over the front of his broom, he reached for the snitch, his shaking fingers coming within inches of actually touching it… when it dived sharply out of sight.

"No!" Harry exclaimed in frustration, but quickly pointed his own broom downward, determined to follow the snitch wherever it went. As he caught sight of the little blue and silver object plummeting sharply to the ground, he wondered idly whether it had ever studied the Wronski Feint. Shaking that ridiculous idea out of his head, he mirrored the trajectory of the snitch, his eyes darting down to where it was falling, and he noticed it was getting quite close to the ground now and approaching… Hermione?

Harry could see Hermione Granger sitting on her green moped, seemingly oblivious to everything around her as she was lost, once again, in a book. He considered his options carefully. He could pull up, avoid a near collision with Hermione and lose the snitch for good (and his chances for practicing quidditch for the rest of the summer). Or…

Harry was now headed at breakneck speed towards the ground and, incidentally, Hermione. On a positive note, he was now very close to the snitch. "Just…a little more," Harry said aloud. With one last mighty effort, Harry's palm encircled the snitch and his fingers closed on it tightly before it could try anything else tricky. Harry let out a victorious whoop but temporarily forgot he was headed for the ground. Tugging hard on the front of his broom, he managed to pull his Nimbus 2000 out of the dive it was in, missing Hermione's head by only about a metre. Letting the broom soar along the ground for a while to slow its momentum, Harry turned it around and brought it to a halt in front of his friend.

"Really, Harry," Hermione said in an annoyed tone of voice, "do you have to be such a showoff?"

Harry was breathing heavily, sweat was pouring from his forehead and his fingers hadn't released their death clamp from the little silver-blue ball that had given him so much trouble. "I got the snitch," Harry announced proudly, as if he hadn't heard Hermione's complaint.

"Yes, well, does this little stunt mean that you're through with quidditch practice for today?" Hermione asked with a hopeful, almost pleading look in her eyes. Was it possible that Hermione had actually been bored reading books? "I've just been reading about some wonderful things we could do in London." 'Nope', thought Harry, 'not possible'. She held up the book in question, "The Young Witch and Wizard's Guide to a Passable Time in Muggle London, or How Not to Be Burned at the Stake (Unless You're Into that Sort of Thing)" by Millicent Melaflua.

Harry finally looked down at the troublesome little snitch that had been transfigured from a hummingbird by Dumbledore, still clutched tightly in his left hand. He really was in no mood to chase this blasted thing again. Reluctantly stuffing it back in the parcel with his broom, he stashed it behind a tree for safekeeping and turned to face an expectant Hermione. "Right. Let's go then."

Harry didn't say anything to Hermione on the drive into London, mostly because he knew she couldn't hear him if he tried, but also because he didn't know exactly what to say. He wasn't really used to spending time alone with Hermione. Or was he? Didn't they save Sirius together? Prepare for the Triwizard Tournament together? And last year, didn't they go on several adventures alone…together?

'Those times don't count,' Harry's brain assured him, 'because she was helping me with something I had to do'. He didn't think he had ever chosen to be alone with Hermione, except for the time when Ron wasn't speaking to him in fourth year. Oh, and when she met him at Hogsmeade with Rita Skeeter last year. That had gotten him into a lot of trouble with his then-girlfriend Cho, hadn't it? But still, he hadn't minded.

'Those don't count either,' Harry's brain piped up eagerly again, although this time it failed to elaborate. The point was that he had never set out to do anything fun with Hermione; that aspect of friendship had always been something he had associated with Ron. Hermione was his study partner, his partner in crime, actually it was almost like they were partners fighting crime, like those police officers you always saw on American TV shows. And could he think of a description of Hermione that didn't include the word 'partner'?

Before Harry knew it, the two of them were in London and Hermione was searching for a place to park her moped. Finally they found a spot that wasn't ridiculously far from Piccadilly Square. It was nearing midday. "I thought our first stop might be the Texas Embassy," Hermione suggested.

"Couldn't we get something to eat first?" Harry complained at the behest of his grumbling stomach. Dudley might have gone off of his grapefruit diet, but breakfast at the Dursleys was still a thoroughly unsatisfying experience. "I'm famished."

"Splendid Ron impression, Harry," Hermione said as she rolled her eyes. "The Texas Embassy is a restaurant." She let out a dramatic sigh and grabbed his hand, pulling him along as if she had to. "Honestly…" 


	4. Leave a tender moment alone

After sampling the best TexMex cuisine London had to offer, Harry Potter decided that he and Hermione didn't need to do that again for the rest of the summer. 'Or ever,' he thought as he remembered his singed mouth. After lunch, Hermione had suggested that they watch a production of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, so that they could take in a little bit of London culture. Much to their surprise, however, the show turned out to be a very funny send up of the famed English playwright's works. Harry looked over at Hermione to make sure she was having a good time. To his great relief, she seemed to be laughing and enjoying herself along with everyone else.

Curiosity weighed on Harry's mind as they exited the theatre. "You seemed to get a lot more of those bits than I did, Hermione. Are you a Shakespeare fan?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "I read all of his plays when I was a little girl. Although my favourite's 'The Tempest,'" Hermione remarked with a somewhat dreamy, Luna Lovegood-esque look on her face.

"I don't think I've heard of that one," Harry admitted with some reluctance, hoping that she wouldn't launch into a complete retelling of the story.

"I think you'd like it," Hermione replied, a strange smile coming over her face. "It's about a wizard who lives on an island with his daughter, who's kind of like a squib because she doesn't have any magical powers. The only company she's ever known is a sprite and a kind of fish monster. So naturally she's fascinated when a bunch of muggles show up on the island."

"Shakespeare wrote about wizards, squibs and muggles?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"Not using those words," Hermione scolded him lightly. She looked away from Harry again and let out a long sigh. "It's so romantic when Miranda sees Ferdinand for the first time, the first real man she's seen her whole life. And then they fall in love, of course…it must have been so lonely for her."

For some reason, this entire conversation was making Harry uncomfortable. He also began to notice that they were walking along the streets of London although they didn't seem to be headed anywhere in particular. "Uh…Hermione?" He hadn't yet captured her attention. "Hermione!" She finally met Harry's eyes. "Where to next?"

"Oh right," Hermione said with a slight blush. "Well…I guess I should consult the guide again. There was a charming little museum around here somewhere…"

The sound of the word 'museum' sent Harry's eyes darting around for an acceptable substitute activity. He finally settled on something that he wasn't sure Hermione would go for, but which seemed unusually alluring to him. A crowd of people about their age was queued up in front of a nightclub. Harry began slowly guiding Hermione towards it while she flipped idly through her guide to muggle London. "Why don't we try this place?" Harry suggested offhandedly as they began to approach the line to enter.

Hermione's head snapped up as if someone had just suggested she'd cheated on a test. "'Serpent's Tooth'," she read aloud. A frown crossed her face, as her fingers changed position within the large tome in her hands. "Let me see if it's listed in here."

Harry let out an overly dramatic sigh. "Can't you… er, we just be spontaneous for once?" He raised his eyebrows at her expectantly.

"Oh, alright," Hermione replied with a small permissive smile. "I suppose it could be fun." As they got into the queue, she added as if in her own defense, "Besides, the name is a clever 'King Lear' reference."

Deciding not to touch that remark, Harry waited patiently with Hermione, who was still flipping through the guide, until a few of their fellow teenagers (some of whom were dressed much more, er, festively than they were) filtered into the entrance in front of them. After a few minutes, they got to the front of the line. A tall, lanky man in his early twenties with silver hair looked them over with disdain. He put his right palm against Harry's chest as he attempted to enter. "No way."

"What!" Harry exclaimed. "Why not?"

The man let out a contemptuous snort. "Not only are you probably underage, but the two of you look like rejects from a library. I don't think I've ever seen anyone stand in queue with a book before," he said, indicating Hermione.

Harry felt the crowd behind him growing restless. "Look, this is our first outing on our own in London," Harry explained in what he hoped was an impressive manner. "We're just looking for a good time." Hermione even put her book away as if to prove it.

The silver-maned man looked as though he was going to say something else nasty until another man stepped in front of him. At first, Harry thought it was Professor Snape, but upon closer examination the man was too young (probably in his mid-twenties), he sported a goatee that Snape would never dream of growing, not to mention that he was wearing a smile. But his dark clothing, large nose and long, greasy black hair gave him a very Snape-like appearance. "Oh, let them in, Marty. They look as though they need to let their hair down."

A sour expression crossed 'Marty's face. "If you say so, Mr. Moseby," he replied mechanically. Harry and Hermione entered without further incident. Unless you counted the fact that the place was so packed once they were in there that they could hardly move. The two of them did their best to make it upstairs, off of the main floor, but found themselves constantly shoved back in the direction of the dance floor, where a massive, pulsating group of their peers seemed to be enjoying themselves quite a lot.

"I guess we should dance then," Harry yelled at Hermione. Hermione gave him a suspicious look, as if somehow he had planned this all along in order to humiliate her publicly. She eventually agreed and the two of them began doing their best to mimic the other dancers on the floor.

Harry wasn't very good. Much to his surprise, however, Hermione wasn't bad. She didn't have much time to show off, however, as Harry trampled on a tall brunette with purple streaks in her hair, who just happened to be dancing with Mr. Moseby, the man who had allowed the two of them into the club in the first place. As he backed away awkwardly, Hermione steered him to what finally looked like a clear path away from the floor.

The two of them quickly made their way upstairs. Taking a seat, Hermione picked up a small card that lay in the middle of their table and was reading it over when Harry decided to make conversation. "Where did you learn to dance like that, Hermione?" Hermione couldn't hear him the first time over the music, so he repeated himself in a louder tone of voice.

"France," Hermione answered simply and loudly. Her eyes turned back to the floor filled with dancing teens below them. "Not exactly the Yule Ball, is it?"

"What!" Harry asked, holding his hand to his ear. Hermione folded her arms and looked frustrated. Grabbing the card she had been looking at earlier and a quill she had been hiding somewhere on her person, she wrote something on it and passed it to Harry. "Let's get out of here and go somewhere we can talk," it read. Harry turned the card over and read the front. "Why did King Arthur turn down a date with Westminster Abbey?" There was no answer to the strange-seeming question, but Harry decided to take Hermione's advice and get out of there. Maybe this had been a bad idea, after all.

As they walked back downstairs to leave the club, the man who looked like Snape stood in front of them, blocking their path. Harry gulped, but tried to look brave. However, Mr. Moseby didn't seem to be angry. He offered both of them another warm smile. "Come back anytime," he offered kindly, and then moved out of their way, leaving them both looking perplexed as they made their way back onto the streets of London.

"Are you certain this is a shortcut?" Harry Potter asked Hermione Granger with exasperation evident in his voice. "I think we've passed this tree before."

Hermione was unperturbed. "If I'm reading this map correctly," and her tone left no doubt that she was, "the street where we parked should be right beyond this…" She pointed first, looked at where she was pointing second and then pretended as though what she was actually pointing at was what she meant to. "lake… over here."

Harry let a slight grin escape his face. "Right." As he took in their surroundings, Harry couldn't help but be struck by how picturesque the night was. A half-moon hung above a cloudless sky and reflected beautifully off of the shimmering surface of the lake. A small grove of trees cast a canopy around the shoreline and a thin, curvy paved road ran parallel to it. Their feet seemingly moving of their own accord, Harry and Hermione ambled slowly along the path so that they faced the middle of the lake.

They stood there in silence for a few minutes, taking everything in. It was a nice moment, tranquil and happy, something that Harry Potter, boy wizard prodigy destined to end the reign of terror of Lord Voldemort, wasn't used to. Sure there were fun times, when he was at the Burrow or playing Quidditch, but those were hardly relaxing. And the quiet moments, when he had some down time, were usually dull. So this was something Harry definitely wasn't used to. A nice moment.

But, of course, he had to go and spoil it. "I miss him," Harry confessed in a whisper.

The words hung in the air for a few seconds, as a large weight seemingly descended on them both. The problems of the wizarding world promptly returned to their minds. "I know you do," Hermione replied and there was no question as to who they were talking about: Sirius Black. It was nice having a friend who could practically read your mind. Harry soon found Hermione's reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"He was like a brother to my father. He was my only connection to my parents, to the lives that they led. And he suffered more because of their deaths than I did. I…I loved him." Harry hadn't expected to be pouring his heart out like this, particularly not to Hermione. But then again, now that Sirius was gone, was there anyone besides Hermione who he would feel comfortable talking about this with? Upon consideration, Harry thought not.

"You know it wasn't…" Hermione started, but she stopped herself before he could. He didn't need to hear "your fault", he just needed the sentiment behind it expressed aloud.

Harry nodded slowly. "I know." Silence fell again. The intimate friendship between them was palpable as he gave her an appreciative half-smile and Hermione's hand had not left his arm. It was another nice moment and Harry wasn't about to spoil it

Turns out he didn't have to. Hermione did it for him. "I'm thinking of asking Ron out," she said suddenly.

As far as Harry's brain was concerned, she might have just announced that she was going to try to fly to Mars on a broomstick. "Asking Ron out? You mean, out on a date?"

"Of course, Harry," Hermione retorted, removing her hand from his arm so she could give it a light and playful punch. "There's been…something…between us for a while now. Of course, he's been too thick to really see it, but I thought you would have picked up on it by now. You're usually much more sensitive about these things."

'You know all about the Martian SuperBroom, don't you Harry?' seemed to be reverberating around his mind. When did this happen? I mean, sure there were all of those arguments and there was protectiveness of Hermione on the part of Ron (although Ron was perhaps the single most partisan and possessive individual Harry had ever met). He soon became aware of a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. It wasn't jealousy, as Harry wished both of his best friends all of the happiness in the world. Instead, it felt somewhat similar to how he felt about Sirius' death: that something special had been lost, possibly before he had even really experienced it.

Harry just now became conscious of the fact that he had been standing there in front of Hermione, mouth agape, saying nothing for about twenty seconds. He closed his mouth and tried to think of some way to respond. There wasn't anything he wanted to say, but he had to say something. "That's great, Hermy," he heard some voice that sounded roughly like his own say. "I hope you and Don are really together happy."

"Are you feeling alright, Harry?" Hermione asked with a frown as she placed her hand to his forehead. "You look flushed."

"I'm fine," he replied, turning away from Hermione quickly, although he felt his face go hotter.

"No you're not," Hermione said in an authoritative tone of voice she usually saved for the classroom, as she stepped in front of Harry, practically shoving her face in front of his. "That's why I wanted to bring this up now, before I actually asked him. I thought you might feel this way."

Harry felt a great knot in his stomach, as if his insides were being transported by portkey while leaving his skin and bones behind. Hermione knew how he felt? How? And if she did, could she maybe explain it to him? "Er, what way?" Harry asked lamely.

"Excluded. Like a third wheel. Isolated. Alone." Hermione's words seemed to cut at his heart like a dagger. She was right. Why was she right? Happiness for Ron and Hermione was something that would naturally make Harry happy too, wasn't it? "It's been something that you've struggled with for most of your life, hasn't it? Ron told me about what you saw in the Mirror of Erised. That a family was what you wanted most." Why was Hermione saying this? And why did it seem like the most compelling thing in the world right now to Harry? "Other than the Dursleys, who I know are horrid to you and always have been, the only family you've had is Sirius…and us."

"Us?" Harry repeated mindlessly. The two of them had been moving closer together without either of them really noticing. Their heads hadn't been that far apart to begin with.

"Us," Hermione said again in a muted voice. What were they doing? "And…and you've lost Sirius already…you don't want to lose…" She couldn't make herself say the rest. Their lips were dangerously close and they weren't getting any further apart. Kissage seemed imminent.

Hermione's brain, however, had other plans. "The Lady of the Lake," she interrupted suddenly.

Harry looked at her as though she had suddenly suggested that they both apparate to Madagascar for the weekend. Actually, that might have been more in keeping with the moment. "What?" Harry asked, completely perplexed.

"Westminster Abbey is where English kings are crowned, but that was after King Arthur's time. It was the Lady of the Lake's presentation of Excalibur to Arthur that made him king," Hermione announced as if it had something to do with anything that had been going on in the last few minutes. "So King Arthur turned down a date with Westminster Abbey because he'd been crowned by the Lady of the Lake."

Something was buzzing inside Harry's mind, but he couldn't quite pin it down. As he got ready to ask Hermione what in the world she was going on about this time, he caught a glimpse of something odd out of the corner of his eye. It was a girl, about their age, thrashing about in the lake below them. "I don't believe it," Harry exclaimed.

"I know," Hermione replied with a look of disgust on her face. "Jokes about domestic violence towards men aren't any funnier than the ones about women." Harry didn't bother to reply to that, but instead took off towards where the girl was to get a closer look. It was as he feared. She was drowning. 


	5. The saving people thing

"Harry!" Hermione called as Harry Potter rushed towards the lake at a full run. "What do you think you're doing!"

Harry's eyes darted quickly to Hermione, but then found themselves looking again at the girl as she bobbed precariously in the water. "Help…" she cried out in a gurgle. "Me…snake…" Upon getting those words out of her mouth, she was pulled back underwater.

"I have to save her!" Harry declared as he hastily removed his socks and shoes and prepared to go into the water.

"Harry, you're not thinking!" Hermione declared as if it was the eighth deadly sin. "You can't use magic, remember! How are you going to fight whatever's down there?"

"If it's a snake, I can talk to it," Harry said as he launched himself into the water. "I'm a parselmouth, rememb…gurk!" Harry was jerked suddenly underwater by something strong and slimy. He thought he heard Hermione yell out his name again, but it seemed faint and distant, as if a thousand miles away. It was dark down here, much too dark to see and all of the brilliantly heroic things he imagined he might do to the beast flew quickly out of his mind. Harry's hand tugged at the serpentine body encircling him, but the effort only seemed to make it constrict tighter. He attempted to speak parseltongue, but only useless bubbles of air came out of his mouth. Trying another tactic, Harry kicked violently at where he imagined the snake's head to be, as he felt the last of the air in his lungs give out and he suddenly became very lightheaded.

However, instead of hitting the snake, Harry's feet seemed to touch the bottom of the lake. He felt a jolt all through his body, as if he were suddenly coming alive. Bright light registered in his eyes as they widened at the sight before him: dozens of dead bodies, drifting along the bottom, appearing to look at him with haunted and accusing eyes. Feeling mysteriously strengthened, Harry caught sight of the girl and the large sea serpent's head, then with one bound grabbed them both and surfaced.

As Harry felt sweet air flow in and out of his lungs for the first time in over a minute, he spoke frantically in parseltongue to the snake, who took a lot of persuading before it decided not to try to kill the young blonde he had jumped in to save (not to mention Harry himself). With an angry hiss, the serpent disappeared below the surface, leaving Harry and the young woman alone, floating in the water. "Are you alright?" Harry asked. When the girl, who still seemed to be in shock, nodded in the affirmative, Harry guided her to the shore and the two soggy teenagers walked around shakily, as if getting their land legs back.

Harry suddenly realized in somewhat of a panic that Hermione was nowhere around. His eyes darted frantically around the mysterious lake, searching for any sign of her. 'What a stupid prat I am if I jumped in the water to save some stranger and let something horrible happen to Hermione.' Harry was just imagining what horrific things some Death Eater might be doing to her when he caught sight of her large brown, bushy hair moving through the trees in front of them. He should have known that nothing tragic had befallen her, as she was a very capable witch. A smile crossed Harry's face as he made out her concerned visage, but a look of confusion soon replaced it as he noticed she wasn't alone.

The first person he saw with her was a large, older man who put Harry in mind of Hagrid, striding along right beside her. Unlike Hagrid, however, his hair was gray, curly and neatly quaffed, his face was clean-shaven and his chiseled features made him look like nothing so much as a contented gargoyle. He could hardly miss the next new face that was traveling in the pack with Hermione, as its male owner rushed quickly towards the two of them. For a moment Harry thought he would be in for a fight, but as he drew closer it became clear that it was the girl he was interested in. "Violet!" he cried out and pulled her into a tight hug. "Thank goodness you're safe! When that girl told me you were in danger, I…I…"

As 'Violet' assured the young man that she was alright, Harry cast an appreciative glance at Hermione. She smiled back at him as she came near. "I went for help," she explained, as if Harry hadn't already figured this out. As she came closer, Hermione whispered to him so that the others couldn't hear, "That was a very brave thing you did, Harry. Stupid and dangerous too, of course, but brave."

Harry moved to where Violet and the young man who he presumed to be her boyfriend were standing. Violet looked up into Harry's eyes. "You saved my life," she declared breathily. Harry only grinned somewhat shyly in response. He was a little surprised, however, when fear and confusion registered in her eyes. "You… you talked to that snake, didn't you?" she asked, her American accent apparent for the first time.

"Of course," Harry started to answer without thinking. "I'm a…"

"Snake charmer," Hermione finished for him quickly while casting a pointed glance back at Harry. "We've spent several summers in India together and he has a very unusual affinity for snakes. The maharaja who taught him said he was the most exceptionally talented snake charmer he'd seen in generations."

"Well then, thank goodness for summers in India," the young man said with a broad smile. He looked Harry up and down and suddenly the young wizard realized how ridiculous he must look in his soaking wet clothes and bare feet. "Terry Nichten-Teach," the man introduced himself. "And you are…?"

"Harry Potter," the broad-shouldered man Harry had seen earlier answered for him. As his eyes turned to look at the strange, and strangely familiar-looking, man, he saw both Mr. Moseby and the brunette with purple streaks in her hair with whom he had been dancing out of the corner of his eye. They appeared to be holding back raucous fits of laughter, although it wasn't clear what they thought was so funny.

"Er…yeah, that's me," Harry said in a low voice.

"Well, Harry Potter, it seems I am in your debt," Terry said as he shook Harry's hand fervently. Terry Nichten-Teach would have made a handsome young man, Harry thought, if only his nose weren't so long and his ears weren't so large. He looked a bit like Percy Weasley, come to think of it, only with curly brown hair instead of fiery red. "You've saved my girlfriend's life. I don't know how I can repay you…"

"Best not to try," Harry replied modestly. Mr. Moseby and his female companion were openly laughing now, although Harry still couldn't see the cause of it.

"Ah, but where are my manners," Terry said as he cast a reproachful look at Mr. Moseby. Harry had just noticed with mild surprise that Terry, too, had some sort of American accent. "Harry Potter, these are my employees," he added particular emphasis to that word, "Lloyd Moseby and Elmira Pinnix. You'll have to excuse them. They have a very morbid sense of humor." Lloyd and Elmira managed to hold a straight face for a few moments after his reproach, then promptly went back to snickering. "And I take it you two know each other," Terry said of Harry and the large man standing next to him.

"Actually no," Harry answered sheepishly as he reshaped his wet bangs in hopes of covering his scar. "We haven't met. It's, er, not a surprise that he recognizes me, though. In some circles, I am quite well known."

The man looked at Harry as though he were a dung beetle. "Atlas Filch," he announced, as if that explained everything.

Harry looked slightly dumbfounded. "Atlas Filch! Are you related to Argus…"

At that point, after being unusually silent these last few moments, Hermione intervened. "So, Mr. Nichten-Teach, by the fact that you employ Mr. Moseby and Ms. Pinnix, can we assume that you are the proprietor of the Serpent's Tooth?"

"Indeed," Terry answered as the slight furrow that had found its way onto his brow began to disappear. "I don't believe we've been introduced, Miss…?"

"Hermione Granger," Hermione answered with a smile. "I'm Harry's girlfriend."

Harry shot her a confused glance, but after Hermione gave him a death gaze in reply, he chimed in quickly, seemingly just now remembering their cover story. "Right. She's my girlfriend. Sorry about that."

"You're welcome to use my establishment any time you'd like," Terry Nichten-Teach told Harry and Hermione with a benevolent look on his face. "Including now. I'm sure you'd like a few refreshments and the opportunity to change clothes. You can even borrow some of mine, if you'd like."

"That would be nice," Hermione answered him as if it were only natural for him to make the offer. "But Harry already has a change of clothes." She then held up the bag with Dudley's hand-me-down suit in it. Harry could only manage a groan in response.

The weekend flew by faster than Harry Potter would have thought possible, considering that he was still spending his mornings and nights with the Dursleys at Privet Drive. Hermione had been picking him up every morning, he had been practicing quidditch (fastest time to getting the snitch thus far: one hour, forty minutes and Harry was bound and determined to break that time) and then they had been spending more time together in London, mostly with their newfound friends and decidedly overeager hosts, Terry Nichten-Teach and Violet Mogle. Terry had just recently come into possession of the Serpent's Tooth upon his father's death and was still changing it around so that it was more suitable to his tastes, including catering to a younger crowd. (Apparently that had been why Lloyd Moseby had been so keen on letting Hermione and himself in the day they first saw the place.)

Harry very much enjoyed the company of his new friends, as he had never spent much time with muggles who weren't completely loathsome before. They seemed to live carefree lives and obsess over trivial matters, and although they didn't know what grave danger they were in from the likes of Lord Voldemort, their naiveté somehow set Harry's mind at ease. He felt comfortable in their presence in a way that he didn't in the wizarding world. Of course, it helped that the single most calming force in his life at Hogwarts, Hermione, was there, too.

If Harry was being honest with himself, there was one other reason that he enjoyed spending so much time with Terry and Violet. He was suddenly uncomfortable spending time alone with Hermione. They had nearly kissed at the lake, and Harry got the feeling it kind of freaked Hermione out. She had been the one to stop it from actually happening, after all and whenever Harry had tried to talk to her about it afterwards, she had just changed the subject. 'Way to go, Potter,' Harry thought bitterly. 'In one day, you manage to make things awkward with the only friend you can spend time with this summer.'

To make their relationship possibly more strained than it already was, the Grangers had insisted on having dinner with Harry tonight, and possibly every Monday night to come if they hit it off. Harry was already imagining doomsday scenarios where he and Hermione barely spoke to each other throughout the evening and her parents were left to wonder if the two of them were really even friends. The pretend dates would stop, Harry would be stuck at the Dursleys for the remainder of the summer and boredom and frustration would ensue, just like last year.

Harry Potter resolved then and there to make things right with Hermione. Not only was it in his own self-interest, but he owed it to the strong friendship the two of them had built over the years to get things out in the open. 'If Hermione wants to be with Ron, I'm not going to stand in her way,' he resolved. His actions that night were still a mystery to him, but he soon blamed it on his sense of isolation and fear after Sirius' death. 'I shouldn't worry about losing Ron and Hermione as friends if they start dating,' Harry falsely assured himself. 'We've been inseparable for years. This won't change anything.'

Even though Hermione wasn't picking him up this morning, as the Grangers had decided that Mondays would be their day to spend with their daughter, Harry had plenty enough to busy himself with. Moody's threat to Vernon Dursley notwithstanding, he had a lot of chores to do around the house, normally twice as many as Dudley (although his cousin was forced to do them when he was out with Hermione, a thought which filled Harry with glee). The time until Hermione would pick him up for dinner with the Grangers seemed to drag very slowly as Harry washed the dishes, cleaned out the pantry and did some gardening in the front yard. 'House elf work,' Harry thought with resentment, although Hermione would surely have chastised him for thinking so.

Finally, after hours of toil and sweat, his Aunt Petunia gave him permission to take an hour to get ready for the big date. As Harry showered and changed into some nice clothes that actually fit him this time, thanks to Violet and Terry's idea to go clothes shopping on Saturday, he went over some things he might say to Hermione once she was here. As he rehearsed some practice conversations, nothing sounded quite right. Plus, Dudley overheard him and he had to quickly make up a lie and say he was preparing for his role in a Hogwarts production of The Winter's Tale. (Harry had found a collection of Shakespeare's works and had discovered a play that featured a character named Hermione, a fact which he found rather amusing.) Dudley teased him about it anyway.

As time seemed to fly forward at breakneck speed, Harry soon found himself answering the door and being ushered outside by the hand by Hermione. After a few seconds, Hermione released his hand as if she had just been instructed by a professor to drop it. "Ready to go?" she asked somewhat shyly.

"Not quite," Harry answered with quiet assurance. "We need to talk."

Hermione nodded briskly but didn't meet his eyes. "Of course," she whispered. "I knew this was coming."

Harry raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. Maybe he wouldn't have to go through any of his painfully rehearsed dialogue after all. But just how much did this girl know about what he was thinking? Suddenly resuming Occlumency lessons with Snape sounded like a pretty good idea. "You did?"

"I'm not stupid, you know," Hermione replied indignantly. Harry did his best not to smile. If there was anything in this world that he knew, it was that Hermione wasn't stupid. "I saw the way you looked at her all this weekend. And the way she looks at you, like you're her knight in shining armour… You want to be with Violet, don't you?"

Harry felt as though he had been kicked in the chest by a centaur. Why in the world would Hermione ever think that he would be interested in Violet? He had just met her! The idea struck him as so ludicrous that he could no longer keep an amused smile from his face. "Hermione…" he started.

But she wouldn't let him finish. "It's OK, Harry. I understand." Hermione did her best to shoot him a sympathetic look, but only managed a slightly sad one. "She is very pretty and boys do like that, you know, at least I think they do and you did save her life so she's bound to be appreciative…"

"Stop," Harry insisted, as he fought off nervous laughter. "Please. Before you hurt yourself, stop." Harry put his right index finger on her lips without really realizing it. "I don't want to date Violet. I wanted to talk about us…on Friday night…down by the lake…"

Hermione met Harry's nervous blathering with a relieved expression on her face as Harry's finger slipped gently off of her mouth. "Oh, that. It was my fault. You were vulnerable and my teenage hormones were on parade. If it makes you feel strange, though…"

"It doesn't," Harry said, although he wasn't entirely sure if this were true or not. What he was sure of was that everything was now pretty close to being right with Hermione and he wasn't about to ruin that. His own amusement was an unstoppable force spreading across his face. "Did you really think that I fancied Violet? For goodness sakes, Hermione, she already has a boyfriend."

As Hermione climbed onto the moped, an infectious grin curled up around her mouth. "Well, I didn't think Terry would be much competition for you. He looks a great deal like Percy Weasley, don't you think? And he knows just a little too much about men's fashions." Before Harry could comment on what Hermione was implying both about Terry Nichten-Teach and Percy Weasley, the moped roared rapidly towards the Granger house. 


	6. OWLs Without Hats

As they approached the Casa del Granger, as Hermione had called it, Harry Potter felt a strange sense of elation. Having spent the day with a knotted ball in his stomach, agonizing over the awkwardness that existed between Hermione and himself, his heart felt suddenly light now that he knew they were on good terms again. As a grinning Hermione opened the door, Harry suddenly remembered that he was going to be spending serious amounts of time with the Grangers, Hermione's parents for crying out loud, and would likely be expected to make a good impression on them.

A sense of fear drifted across Harry's mind like a dementor approaching on a summer's day. What should he say? Should he tell a joke? No, he was no good at that. Where were Fred and George when you needed them? Regale them with stories of his heroic exploits? 'Yes, I should remind them of all the times I've led their daughter into mortal peril,' Harry thought sarcastically. As he entered the house and shook the hands of both Mr. and Mrs. Granger (neither of whose names he had bothered to get from Hermione ahead of time, what was he thinking!), all he offered them was a polite smile and an otherwise closed mouth. At least that wouldn't get him into trouble.

But Harry quickly realized that something else was about to. "Mum, Dad," Hermione announced, sounding to Harry's ears as though she were about to talk about her imminent engagement or pregnancy. "I'd like you to meet Harry Potter." Oh, if only she'd stopped there. "The world's greatest wizard."

If Harry could have apparated away right then and there, he would have, despite the complications it would create for the ruse he and Hermione were perpetrating. He was certain the shock that registered on his face was as great as when Dumbledore had read his name out of the Goblet of Fire. He rummaged through his brain for something, anything to say that would make the situation better. "That…that's not exactly…" he stammered, stopping himself only when he realized that he would, in essence, be calling their daughter a liar. After another moment of awkward silence, Harry decided to just make the best of it. "Right. That's me. You can just call me Harry, though." Hermione managed some weak laughter as thin smiles appeared on the faces of the two dentists and the four of them hastily sat down to dinner.

The meal was excellent, but the dinner was, well, maybe not quite disastrous, but very close. For some reason, Hermione insisted on explaining why she had called Harry the world' s greatest wizard, sometimes referring to it as a mistake and other times explaining her reasoning as if it had been the most logical statement in the world. "Well, certainly he can't apparate or do wandless magic like some older wizards, but he's not even sixteen yet! He could conjure a patronus at thirteen, which is really impressive and which I'm just now learning by the way, and he's a parselmouth. Not that that's such a great power. I mean it's usually associated with dark wizards, isn't it? Although Harry isn't a dark wizard, of course. After all, how could he be? With him going up against Voldemort all the time…"

Harry practically willed Hermione to be quiet and she did fall silent for a moment. However, that silence soon reigned over the dinner table and Hermione's parents were shooting him fleeting glances that seemed to indicate that they thought he was some sort of combination delinquent-prodigy, so that Harry felt compelled to say something to acquit himself. "Well, Defense Against the Dark Arts is my best subject. We haven't got our OWLs back yet, but I'm fully expecting an O on that one. I even conjured a patronus right then and there for the examiner. It was easy, as I just imagined that toad U…" He stopped himself mid-sentence. Maybe the idea of a teacher getting fired giving Harry pleasure wasn't the best thing to discuss with the academic-minded Grangers. "Er, toad of Neville's being properly taken care of and given a happy home. Hermione's told you about Neville's toad, I'm sure. His name's Trevor."

No Granger looked like they'd heard anything he'd said after the word OWLs. It was evidently a topic of great interest around the Granger household and both adults seemed to descend on that subject like birds of prey. "How many OWLs are you expecting, Harry?" Mrs. Granger asked thoughtfully. When Harry didn't respond right away, she continued, "What career goal were you shooting for, anyway?"

"Auror," Harry squeaked helplessly.

"Won't that be rather difficult given the trouble you have with Potions?" Mr. Granger inquired pointedly. Harry's jaw nearly dropped in disbelief, but he managed to hold it up with only a little difficulty. Hermione had told them he was bad at Potions? Did she want them to think poorly of him? Not to mention that they knew doing well in Potions was important to becoming an Auror. Since when did muggles know so much about wizard careers?

"I'm actually not as bad as my grades may make it seem," Harry attempted to explain. "You see, Professor Snape isn't exactly fond of me due to…well, lots of things, actually…"

"I told them that," Hermione insisted as if she were just now getting the opportunity to speak. "But they said blaming the teacher was just what bad students did to make excuses for themselves. I assured them that they would think differently if they'd ever met Professor Snape." Harry then felt a wave of gratitude wash over him for not making that wisecrack about Umbridge.

Mrs. Granger looked completely unsatisfied with his answers thus far. "So what are your safeties?" she asked with one eyebrow arched.

'Safeties?' Harry's brain asked itself. 'Am I supposed to know what safeties are?' As he hemmed and hawed for a few moments, his brain rummaged through everything he knew that had to do with safety: the safety on a gun, safety pins, the Safety Dance…

"So, no safeties then," Mr. Granger declared with a sigh. Harry desperately wanted to apparate again. Why didn't he just give up all hope of seeing Hermione again right now?

Hermione let out her own frustrated sigh. "Honestly," she pronounced haughtily, "even the Ministry of Magic aren't big enough idiots to keep Harry from being an Auror if he wants to be. He's faced Voldemort three times now by himself and once with all of his friends and he's lived to tell the tale."

"Yes, but others haven't, have they?" Mr. Granger responded coldly. Harry seemed frozen in place with tiny tingles of shock running throughout his body. "You nearly didn't just this past year. And that Sirius fellow you were so upset about, didn't he…?"

Before Mr. Granger could finish, Harry rose quickly, mumbled something really lame about needing to get back to the Dursleys, and fled the place as quickly as possible. He didn't even realize there were tears in his eyes until he reached the street, as he tried to decide which direction he had come from. He felt like collapsing right then and there in front of the Grangers' beautiful house in their upscale suburban neighborhood. Why hadn't he been expecting this? Of course his friends' parents would see him as a walking disaster area. The scar on his forehead alone practically screamed 'trouble with Voldemort ahead'. He wondered idly why Arthur and Molly Weasley didn't hate him for putting Ron in danger, time and again.

"Harry!" Hermione cried, seemingly from nowhere. Before Harry knew it, she had pulled him into a tight embrace. She began muttering ceaselessly through occasional sobs and Harry couldn't make everything out, but the gist of it was that her father was being an insensitive prat, she was so, so sorry and please don't be upset. Hermione was usually able to comfort Harry, but as he pulled back from her and looked at the tears streaking down her face, it was hard for him not to let his darker emotions fill him.

"He's right, you know," Harry said softly. "In his own way, he's right. I do put you in danger. You, Ron, Hagrid, practically everyone at Hogwarts. Just by being me. I…" He couldn't bring himself to say more. Now wasn't the time to tell her about the prophecy, as neither of them was really thinking straight.

"Don't do this to yourself, Harry," Hermione pleaded. "The fact that we're in danger from Voldemort isn't your fault. I'm a Muggleborn. Ron's parents are in the Order of the Phoenix. And Hagrid's one of the most loyal Dumbledore supporters I've ever met. We'd all be in danger no matter what. And we would be in even more danger if you weren't around. I don't know why you can't see that."

Hermione was right. As of right now, he couldn't see it. He said nothing else as Hermione quietly told him to get on the moped. She was taking him back to the Dursleys. He had rarely been so happy to be going there.

Harry was absolutely certain that nothing could make today worse than yesterday. Hermione's parents disapproved of him (or if they didn't, they were the best actors Harry had ever seen). He had no idea whether Hermione would be coming to see him today or for the rest of the summer, for that matter. If the Grangers were truly mad at him, they might even phone the Dursleys and let them in on the entire game, perhaps cinching or scuttling the business deal that temporarily linked the two families in one day. Moody's threat notwithstanding, he would suffer severe consequences if the latter happened.

Harry slowly dragged himself out of bed after sleeping as late as he dared on a day when he might be spending it all here, under the watchful eye of Aunt Petunia. As he came down to "breakfast", cold eggs and tomatoes, Petunia and Dudley looked at him in shock. They had likely expected him to have left with Hermione before sunrise. Taking his shrugged answer to Petunia's question about whether or not he would be spending the day with the Granger girl as a no, his aunt quickly doled out the day's chores disproportionately between Harry and Dudley. Harry wasn't in much of a mood to protest and so quickly took to his tasks, thinking bitter thoughts about how this would likely be all he did between now and September 1st.

As Harry was dusting the staircase with unusual fervor, he heard his Aunt Petunia make a strange noise as she moved towards the door. As he lazily turned his green eyes to look at her, she began shrieking like a howler monkey. Harry rushed down the stairs at the same time that Dudley tramped in from the kitchen. Petunia Dursley was clutching a small piece of paper in her hands and her eyes darted furtively from its contents to Harry, seemingly accusing him of something horrible.

Dread filled Harry's heart. Had the Grangers sent the Dursleys some kind of note detailing what had happened the night before? Dudley tried to peek at the small sheet of paper, but Petunia would have none of it, instead making a mad dash for the phone. Harry leaned in as close as he might dare to the telephone, hoping to learn exactly who it was that Aunt Petunia was calling in such a hysterical panic. Unsurprisingly, it was Uncle Vernon, who sounded extremely irritable and even louder than usual.

Harry couldn't make out what his aunt was saying over all of the sobbing and Uncle Vernon's booming voice as it carried across the room (although he mostly said things like "That miscreant!" and "He'll pay for this!"), but it didn't sound promising for him. He tried to back away slowly, perhaps avoiding punishment, if only for a little while. 'It must have been the Grangers,' Harry thought. 'They've sent something over by post. But how could it have gotten here this quickly?'

Just as he was almost out of the room, Petunia yelled out his name and insisted that he talk to Uncle Vernon. Picking up the telephone receiver as though it were some sort of dangerous weapon, Harry reluctantly placed it to his ear. Before he could even say anything, Uncle Vernon's ranting nearly deafened him as he recited punishments for Harry that ranged from starving him for a week to shipping Hedwig overseas to an American zoo Vernon had read about. Harry was a bit surprised by just how mad his Uncle Vernon really was; he knew his uncle would be furious if the dentist drill deal went sour, but as the head of the Dursley household was detailing how he would be given exactly one hour to move his things back to the cupboard below the stairs and that he had better be done by the time Vernon got home from work, Harry asked an unexpected question, just to see if his luck could get any worse. "What exactly is it that I did?"

Vernon Dursley clearly had not expected this question from Harry as his sputtering response proved. "I…Petunia said…you…must have done something! It has to be you! Nothing about this business has come up for years! It must be your fault!"

Harry suddenly felt both relief and confusion. Whatever this was about, it didn't sound like the Grangers had blown the whistle on his already knowing Hermione from Hogwarts. At least Hermione could still come to see him this summer, assuming that was even still possible. "I don't know what you're talking about," Harry said truthfully. Quickly remembering the paper that had so upset Aunt Petunia, he added, "Whatever was in that message, I didn't write it, I swear."

"Of course you didn't!" Uncle Vernon bellowed back, unimpressed with Harry's protests of innocence. "But whoever did has obviously been provoked by something you've done! And if all that strangeness starts again, so help me Potter…"

"It won't!" Harry assured him, a bit alarmed at the protective growl in Vernon Dursley's voice. This seemed to satisfy his uncle, who then proceeded to tell him in no uncertain terms that his punishments would be set once he got home and finally allowed him to lower the telephone receiver back onto its cradle. Still confused and a little shaken, Harry tried to make his way close enough to his Aunt Petunia to get a look at the note. She was still clutching it tightly in her hands, however, so much so that the paper was getting crumpled. Not knowing what else to do, Harry returned to his chores, his mind wandering naturally to the contents of the message and what he might have to do with it.

Harry tried to put what pieces of the puzzle he had together in his mind. He had never seen his Aunt Petunia this upset; she was usually the one who kept calm while Vernon blustered and ranted. Also, while his uncle hadn't told him much about the note, he had said that nothing had come of it for years and that he didn't want strangeness to be starting 'again', so it must be something having to do with magic and something the Dursleys were familiar with from the past. Harry's brow furrowed in thought. Things just weren't adding up. He needed to see that paper.

After an hour in which he dusted everything from Dudley's room to Dudley's closet to Dudley's hidden trunk of contraband (nobody else seemed to want to acknowledge that it existed, so the task was always left up to Harry), he stealthily snuck back downstairs. He no longer heard his Aunt Petunia's muted sobs or Dudley's constant protests about his assigned housework, so he felt it was safe to proceed to the dining room. Checking twice to make sure the coast was clear, Harry picked up the crumpled bit of paper and began to read.

The Potter and the Mudblood Were an extraordinary pair For meddling and foolishness They had an unusual flair Their keeper of the garden Kept all the flow'rs in bloom Auburn Summer then arrived And brought the shroud of doom

Harry's face went red, his teeth gnashed together in anger and his fists crumpled the paper even more, to the point where the words were now barely legible. Someone had clearly seen him and Hermione together, figured out who they were and had written this filth. The use of the word 'mudblood' had always been extremely offensive to Harry, but for some reason now the term really got under his skin. Discriminating against Hermione based on her parentage was just downright idiotic. (The fact that Harry himself wasn't happy with her parents right now temporarily slipped his mind.)

Harry let a deep frown cross his face as he read the message again. While there was nothing specifically threatening in the verse, it did seem ominous somehow. But how did the Dursleys know what it meant?

The buzzing of the doorbell barely registered in Harry's brain until the realization hit him that this could be the person who'd left the note in the first place. Didn't the criminal always return to the scene of the crime? Maybe not, but Harry was determined to answer the door before his cousin Dudley or Aunt Petunia could. Yanking the front door open with his temper still hot, he was determined to give the person on the other side of it a piece of his mind. That was until he saw who it was and realized she had no need for any part of his brain. "Hermione?" 


	7. Cruel Summer

There were several good reasons that Harry Potter didn't want to let Hermione Granger out of his arms at this very moment, or at least so Harry assured himself. There was the problem with the Grangers that made Harry doubt whether he would even see Hermione for the rest of the summer (or anytime ever again other than at Hogwarts). There was the vaguely threatening poem he had just discovered had been delivered to the Dursleys, which seemed to name Hermione and him as part of something called 'Auburn Summer'. Plus, Hermione was clutching him really tightly, so it might actually put him in physical danger if he were to try and remove her. And then there was the not unimportant fact that it felt really, really good.

Unfortunately, Aunt Petunia and Dudley Dursley had at this point come to investigate the simple mystery of who had rung the door bell, only to find Harry (who was not popular with either of them at the moment) hugging his faux girlfriend (who they had to placate in order to make sure an important business deal didn't fall through) for dear life. Dudley openly mocked the duo and Petunia only hesitantly made him stop. Eventually the two of them tired of having Harry's obnoxious relatives for an audience and they quickly made their way upstairs to his room.

They both sat down on Harry's bed and spent about a minute assuring each other that they were alright before they got down to business. "I'm sorry it took so long for me to get over here," Hermione explained, her face slightly pink. "Dad was still pretty furious about last night and even getting out of the house took Mum covering for me. And this note," she handed Harry a piece of paper with the same rhyme that had found its way to the Dursleys' doorstep, "didn't help matters much. When Dad saw this, he got steamed all over again. He's ordered me to stay away from you."

Harry found he could no longer look at her, so he conveniently cast his eyes upon the sheet of paper she had handed him. "I got one of these notes, too. I've never seen the Dursleys act as afraid as they did when Aunt Petunia read this." Harry paused, gulped and made his eyes find something interesting to gaze at on the floor. "Listen, Hermione, I…I understand if you don't want to see me any more this summer. Your parents…"

"…aren't important right now. You are." Hermione took his hand in hers and Harry made his eyes look at their joined hands, although he still couldn't look her in the eye. "I'm…we're still all so sorry about what happened last summer. I just can't leave you alone again. Especially now, when this stupid poem was sent to both of us." She made an emphatic gesture at her own pristine piece of paper with the 'Potter and the Mudblood' verse written on it.

"Yeah, I can't believe someone wrote this about us," Harry replied, some of the anger that he had felt only moments ago upon first reading it coming back to his face.

"Are you certain that…whoever it was… wrote it about us?" Hermione asked, as she raised one eyebrow poignantly.

"Of course," Harry answered her, his brow furrowing in slight confusion. "Who else could it be about?"

"I'm not sure of anything right now, mind you," Hermione told him in a somewhat apologetic tone. "But it could be talking about your parents."

The idea struck Harry like a thunderbolt. 'My parents were James Potter and Lily Evans, a Muggleborn.' Hermione must think he had the collective IQ of Crabbe and Goyle not to think of this earlier. The Dursleys' reaction certainly seemed to make a lot more sense in light of this revelation and the anger that Harry felt turned into a deep burning sensation in his stomach. "Of course," Harry said again, this time in a completely different, wondrous tone of voice. His eyes scanned the poem again quickly, looking for further clues. "'The keeper of the garden'," Harry read aloud, wheels finally turning in his head. "My grandfather Evans was a gardener. It's why he named his daughters after flowers. Or so my Aunt Petunia always said. I never knew him."

"Do the Dursleys have anything of your grandfather's?" Hermione asked pointedly. When Harry gave her a mildly questioning look, she added, "Or of your mother's? We could look through them and see if we find anything about an 'Auburn Summer'."

"Aunt Petunia wouldn't have anything that belonged to her sister Lily," Harry replied as he let a little note of sadness slip into his voice. "There was too much bitterness between them. But I think she does have some of my grandfather's belongings out in the garage." He rose somewhat reluctantly from his bed and pulled Hermione up. "Come on."

Explaining halfheartedly to his Aunt Petunia that he wanted to show Hermione something in the garage, he ignored her completely perplexed and disdainful look and led the way to the dusty side garage. It was mostly packed with things Dudley had gotten tired of playing with over the years, but which Harry either didn't want or couldn't use. Rummaging through boxes of rubbish which included exhaustive tax records kept by Uncle Vernon and a ridiculous number of baby pictures (all of Dudley, of course), he finally came to a box labeled 'Mum and Dad' in barely legible scrawl. "This is it," Harry announced and the two of them unceremoniously dug through the pile of unorganized paperwork and photos, hoping to find some clue as to what the poem they had both received meant.

Much to their dismay, Harry and Hermione learned little useful information as they dove through the pile. Harry did discover, however, that his grandfather apparently had managed to clip every article the London Times had ever written on growing turnips and then arrange them in chronological order. After nearly an hour of searching, Hermione finally found something that mentioned the words 'Auburn Summer'. Disconcertingly, it was in a front page news story from the late 1970s…about the Evans' murder.

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed in shock upon finding it. "You never told me your grandparents were murdered."

Moving so quickly to look over Hermione's shoulder that he nearly smashed their two heads together, Harry looked just as astonished as she did. "That's because I didn't know! Aunt Petunia never told me. Why would she…" He stopped speaking and started reading, his amazement growing at nearly every moment.

Hermione read the important tidbits aloud. "…authorities believe the murder may be in connection to a series of unusual events involving their daughter Lily and her boyfriend, James Potter…" "…only clues at the murder scene were a solitary thumbprint which has yet to be identified and a key which is of similar unknown origin…" "the words 'Auburn Summer' were written on the walls in blood. According to their daughter Petunia, the phrase meant nothing to relatives of Reginald and Agatha Evans…" After a few moments of stunned silence, Hermione and Harry shared a worried glance.

"Harry," Hermione mouthed almost breathlessly. "If this 'Auburn Summer' is here again, and everything happens the same way…"

"Your parents could be in terrible danger," Harry finished, a slight chill running up his spine. "Which means we have to stop it from happening again. And to do that, we have to find out exactly what happened twenty years ago."

Hermione had insisted on writing Dumbledore straight away, detailing everything that they had discovered. Harry felt very much like protesting. 'We hardly need Dumbledore's permission to investigate my grandparents' murder,' he thought to himself. However, Hermione pointed out that he could know something about the case or at the very least arrange a meeting between them and the Auror who looked into the case originally.

"An Auror?" Harry questioned. "But my grandparents were muggles. Shouldn't we be looking through police reports or something?"

Hermione shook her head. "Their daughter was a witch and the story said something your parents did might have been related to the murders. Trust me, an Auror would have been put on the case. Besides, who do we know who could get us access to old police records?"

Harry agreed without further comment and the two of them spent the rest of the day going through some more of Reginald and Agatha Evans' personal belongings, speculating what else they could do to find out more about 'Auburn Summer' (suffice it to say there was nothing in Hogwarts, a History or any of the other books Hermione had brought along for light reading about the phrase), and eventually fending off Vernon Dursley, as Hermione insisted that Harry not be severely punished or her parents would be very displeased. Harry inwardly winced as he realized that this was now a bluff. His Uncle Vernon seemed to fall for it, however, promising that Harry would indeed be well fed, allowing him to stay in Dudley's second bedroom and giving Hedwig a reluctant pat on the head just to be safe.

Although all three Dursleys gave Harry dirty looks throughout, Hermione stayed for dinner (thus ensuring Harry got normal portions of food) and then the two of them made their way back to Harry's room. "I don't know how long I can stay here, Harry," Hermione announced warily as she took her place next to him on his bed. "Mum told Dad I'd be spending the day at the library, doing research for Muggle Studies. He'll probably be expecting me home soon." She then gave him a look that defiantly declared that she would much rather stay.

Harry nodded knowingly. "You should probably go then. If you can't make it back anytime soon, I'll send Hedwig…"

Hermione interrupted him forcefully. "I'll be here tomorrow, bright and early." She let out a wide grin that relaxed Harry instantly. "It's taken care of, Harry. You don't have to worry about my father…or me."

"I can't help that," Harry declared without thinking. He was getting that strange buzz of confusion around his head, like when they were by the lake. "When I thought that that poem was about you, was about us… I…"

"I know," Hermione stopped him, her eyes filled with understanding in the face of what seemed like an overwhelming sense of uncertainty on Harry's part. "I'm kind of surprised you didn't think of your parents immediately, really. I mean, why would you think of us as a pair? It's not like we….well, you know…"

"I don't know," Harry answered, his fingers suddenly feeling restless, as though he should be doing something important with them. His eyes looked away from her and he suddenly found his dresser absolutely fascinating. "It just seemed…right. Somehow. Does that make sense?" He turned back to face her and found that her face was much closer to his own than he had realized.

This must have shaken her somehow, because she suddenly stood up. "I should go. Dad will be livid if he thinks that I've been out with you. If Mum gets worried about me and tells him it could ruin everything."

Harry felt a sense of disappointment that turned itself into mild anger. "Right. Wouldn't want your Dad to think you've been out with me. Off you go then." Hermione didn't seem to pick up on his feelings as she quickly said goodbye. Harry listened for her moped speeding off and then kicked his shoes across the room in frustration. What was wrong with him? Why was some part of him trying to ruin everything between him and Hermione? Maybe it was Voldemort, playing tricks with Harry's mind. Except Hermione seemed to be helping things along, and he didn't really think the 'Dark Lord' would stoop to trying to make things difficult between two teenagers, even if one of them was the Boy Who Lived.

Harry was thinking idle thoughts about Voldemort making a plan with his Death Eaters to lure Harry into having a row with Ron over Quidditch practice scheduling when he suddenly drifted off to sleep. In one of his dreams, Cho Chang was kissing him again and he seemed to have even less choice in the matter this time. As he tried to break away, she began crying all over him and her tears seemed to paralyze him, holding him in place. Before he knew it, water began pouring all over him, no longer from Cho Chang's tear ducts, but from a waterfall above him.

Harry found the strength in his legs to move away from the waterfall, leaving Cho on the other side so that he could no longer see her face, only her Ravenclaw Quidditch robes. As he attempted to make his way out of the water he was confronted by a suspiciously dry (and inexplicably alive) Cedric Diggory in his own Hufflepuff Quidditch robes, pointing accusingly at Harry and Cho. Harry attempted to defend himself, saying that he hadn't meant to kiss Cho, who he of course knew belonged to Cedric, but she had just been so insistent and he hadn't been able to pull away. This did little to satisfy the former Hufflepuff Seeker, and in truth Harry was finding that his story was somehow unbelievable even to him. As he looked back towards Cho, she no longer looked like herself. Her robes were still the color and style of Ravenclaw but her face was changing and her hair was getting lighter…

At that point, his dream seemed to shift gears, and he instantly knew he was the snake again, crawling on the floor of what looked like a very old and very posh wizard's house. What he was doing there, he wasn't sure, but… Suddenly he saw a man with a mid-length black beard with streaks of gray in it sipping tea. Harry knew that this was a man who had been marked for death by Lord Voldemort. He felt the killing strike more than witnessed it and then awoke with an ear-splitting scream.

The Dursleys ignored the interruption of their nightly routine but continued to give him funny looks over breakfast the next morning. Harry contemptuously ignored them back, waiting anxiously for Hermione to show up so that he could tell her about his dream. Eventually he heard the sound of the doorbell ringing and rushed to greet her with a crooked, tentative smile on his face. However, from the bounce in her step and the poignant way she looked at him, he knew she had big news as well. Not even paying attention to Dudley's snide remarks, the two of them snuck back up to Harry's room and before Harry had even closed it, Hermione burst out "Do you want the good news or the kind of strange news first?"

After Harry's dream last night, the choice was clear. "The good news."

Hermione practically beamed. "My owl came back from Dumbledore with a note addressed to my Dad that said he was asking me to help you with a special summer project for school. He's still not happy with you, so I wouldn't recommend coming to visit any more, but he'll more or less have to let me see you whenever I want."

Harry let a relieved look cross his face. "That's great, Hermione." She had a slightly nervous smile on her face that let him know there was more. "Er, so what's the strange news?"

Hermione shot him a slightly bewildered look. "Well, Dumbledore apparently was familiar with what happened to your grandparents, and he has given us the name of one of the Aurors who was investigating at the time. He, erm, also says that there were two main suspects in the case, neither of whom were ever brought up on charges. Two people we've recently become familiar with."

Harry's eyebrows shot up in interest. "Out with it, Hermione. Who were the suspects?"

"Frank Nichten-Teach," Hermione replied softly. "And Atlas Filch." 


	8. Three Arm Charlie

"It was that muggle what done it," the grizzled-looking man who played host to Harry Potter and Hermione Granger declared in a muted growl. His name, Harry recalled, was Charles Fournier, but his nickname was Three-Arm Charlie. According to Dumbledore, he hated being called this. Harry had wondered idly at the time why the Headmaster had even included this little tidbit in his letter. Now he realized it was a warning, and Harry was certainly grateful for it.

Charles Fournier held a book that contained some of his Auror records in one hand, flipped through it with another and held a cup of tea he was sipping with his third. The short, sinewy arm grew out of his side, covered by an improvised sleeve that stopped at the elbow. Hermione felt brave enough to ask a question, the first time either of them had spoken a word since both had let out a fearful "Hello" at the front door. Appropriately enough, it was about the muggle in question, the father of the young club owner they had met last week, Terry Nichten-Teach. "Excuse me, Mr. Fournier, but what motive did Frank Nichten-Teach have to murder the Evans'?"

Three-Arm Charlie gave her a mild look of disgust. "Since when do muggles have to have a reason to kill other muggles? Who knows why they do what they do? I told 'em, no point in us investigating this one. Best leave it to the Aren'tors."

'Aren'tors', Harry knew from Mad-Eye Moody, was a term Aurors used for muggle policemen that wasn't exactly complimentary. "But," Harry spoke up nervously, "they were the parents of a witch and Atlas Filch was a suspect. Surely you interrogated him, didn't you?"

"Of course," Mr. Fournier answered with a scowl. "But he had an alibi, didn't he? All sorts of people saw him at that muggle club of his. Besides, I don't think I've ever seen no proper wizard go on about 'Auburn Summer'. Usually it's just kids pulling pranks or some muggle who's found out about the wizarding world for the first time and wants a li'l piece of the action."

"Sir," Hermione piped up in the most polite voice she could manage, "what is Auburn Summer?"

"A fairy tale," Three-Arm Charlie snorted contemptuously. "Muggles, squibs and wizards with limited powers thinkin' they can become Order of Merlin-class wizards by killin' a couple o' dozen muggles and chanting some old incantation. Not a bad idea in practice, but it never really works."

"You weren't in Slytherin house, by any chance, were you?" Harry asked wryly without really thinking. Hermione shot him a look of exasperation.

Charles Fournier shook his head dismissively. "Nah. Didn't go to Hogwarts. Me Mum insisted I attend Durmstrang, like she did. Wonderful old place. Lots of good memories there." Three-Arm Charlie seemed to lose himself in thought for a moment and then turned his attention back to the two teenagers. He handed Hermione a folder that must have contained information on the case. "Open and shut, really. The thumbprint at the scene was the muggle's and that master key to his club could only have belonged to him or Mr. Filch."

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking," Hermione began cautiously, "if Mr. Nichten-Teach was so obviously guilty, why didn't the muggle police bring him up on charges?"

The old Auror waved all three of his arms in a gesture of disgust. "They believed a bunch of tripe from some young muggles about him being at the club, wearing a mask. Said they could recognize his voice anywhere. They were having some kind of disguise celebration that night, apparently. Leave it to muggles to celebrate their limited ability to conceal their identity." He scoffed. "But even muggles have those wreckherding devices that capture their voices and play them back. I for one didn't see how even they could be that monumentally stupid."

As Hermione perused the folder she had been handed, it was left to Harry to make awkward conversation. Unfortunately, he came up empty. "Well, I suppose we'll be going then."

"If you'll wait a moment," Charlie Fournier said with a slight growl, "I've owled my old partner about you two. He's active, so if you need any help from someone who's still in the field…" As if on cue, a brown and red spotted owl flew through his window. "Ah, there's Talon now." The bird flew to his right-most hand and the old Auror used his other two to remove a message from the bird's leg. When he read it, his eyes flew open in horror. "Britannicus, he…he's been attacked!" Hermione dropped the manila folder in her lap and Harry rose to look at the message once it fell from the old Auror's worn hand.

"A serpent," Harry stated aloud and he and Hermione shared a knowing look. Harry had told her about his dream from the night before and both of them had almost instantly known that it was related to 'Auburn Summer' somehow. This, evidently, was the how. Harry folded the message and returned it to Mr. Fournier out of respect for his privacy.

However, the ex-Auror revealed the rest of its contents to the two teenagers anyway. "He'll be fine, for the most part. Britannicus always did keep loads of anti-venom potions around, but he'll be incapacitated for a while. The Ministry's asked me to fill in for him until he gets back on his feet. Er, so to speak. I reckon they're swamped now that everybody knows You-Know-Who is back." His middle arm withdrew a pair of spectacles and placed them gingerly on his face. "I'll owl them back, let them know I accept…"

Hermione shot Harry an urgent look that said that it was time to go. "We'll just leave you to that, then," Harry rambled quickly.

"If we would need more information on the case, sir, would you be so obliging…?" Hermione started to ask, but his one idle hand shushed her with a wave.

"Yes, yes," Charles Fournier declared, his eyes never leaving the parchment in front of him. "Now go on. Must be more exciting things for young ones like yourselves to be doing on a day like this than investigating twenty year old murder cases. Solved ones in particular."

"Harry," Hermione practically hissed as soon as they had bounded down the steps of Charles Fournier's small flat and in the direction of her green moped, "if you saw that snake attack Britannicus Leslie, then it had to be…"

"Voldemort," Harry finished for her, giving her an apprehensive and appraising look. "He was behind it. I suppose the question now is: why?"

Hermione's face filled with worry. "I'd like to say that it's a coincidence, that V..Voldemort is just trying to get at any Aurors that he can, but I just don't think so. This has something to do with what happened to your grandparents, I know it. I can almost feel it."

Harry nodded solemnly. "There's something else, too. I don't agree with Three-Arm Charlie in there. Mr. Nichten-Teach is dead, so he could hardly be doing it again. This case is far from solved." He interpreted the fact that Hermione didn't immediately disagree as a sort of understood assent. "Which means we have to do it. And I know just where to start."

Harry Potter inserted a copy of the old master key to the Serpent's Tooth from twenty years ago into the lock and sincerely hoped that it still worked. To both his and Hermione's relief, it did. As Harry tentatively entered the "muggle club", as Charles Fournier had called it, that the two of them had visited only last week under very different circumstances, Hermione withdrew the key and looked at it apprehensively. "Mr. Fournier probably left this in the folder by mistake. I can't imagine that we're actually supposed to have any old evidence from the case."

"Yeah, well we're not supposed to be here, either. But we are." Harry's voice, although practically a whisper, carried through the empty building much more than he would have liked. Mentally, he willed no one else to be here, as it might make things terribly awkward. Making sure that Hermione wasn't looking to back out, he grabbed her hand and the two of them advanced as quietly as possible through the abandoned nightclub. It seemed spooky somehow, in a way that most places he'd run across in the wizarding world didn't. Houses where muggles lived seemed utterly lifeless when they were away from them, as there were no moving portraits or enchanted objects to give the place a sense of vivacity.

Taking a quick look around the first floor, Harry and Hermione discovered nothing out of the ordinary: the large dance floor Harry remembered with some embarrassment from when they had been here before, a few tables and chairs (and some nicer furniture probably left over from when this place was for adults only), and several bar counters from which drinks were dispensed. "I guess the business offices are upstairs," Hermione told Harry in a barely audible whisper. With a quick nod, he led the way back to the spiral staircase and ascended it as quickly and quietly as possible.

As the two of them looked around, they discovered that Hermione's suspicions proved to be correct. A row of similar-looking doors led down a hallway not far from the small row of tables where they had briefly sat their last time here. Harry used the key to open each one in turn, as there were no signs indicating which one led to what. After discovering a broom closet, a matching set of blue and pink-painted loos, (which he could only imagine were for public use but he really couldn't fathom why they weren't labeled) and a luxurious reading room that looked like it hadn't been used in years, Harry found what he had been dreading most: someone else, emerging from a door Harry was just preparing to unlock.

Letting out a startled gasp, Harry came face to face with Violet Mogle. The faintly pretty young blonde's eyes were wide and she too looked very startled. 'No reason she wouldn't be,' Harry thought glumly to himself. 'We're not supposed to be here.' "Hullo, Violet," Harry said quickly. Thinking fast, he withdrew the key from her sight, but did not pocket it, as he didn't want to look like they had anything to hide. "What brings you here?" he asked, as if it were she who was the one trespassing. He could practically feel Hermione hiding a grimace behind his head.

Luckily for the two Hogwarts students, Violet did not get huffy and turn the question back around on them immediately. "I…I was looking for Terry," she stammered, her eyes looking glazed over and hazy. She looked rather like Luna Lovegood at this moment, Harry thought idly, although slightly taller and with a flatter nose.

Hermione's face wrinkled in confusion. "Didn't he say that he's taking day classes for that summer business course at Oxford on Wednesdays?" Harry hadn't remembered this, but Hermione had reminded him once they had exited the ex-Auror's house. Harry had managed to tease her about hanging on Terry Nichten-Teach's every word, but privately he appreciated the fact that Hermione was so attentive to detail.

"Oh, of course," Violet replied, her eyes darting around as if they were searching for some quick method of escape. "I must have forgotten." They stood in silence for a moment, all three of them feeling awkward at their current situation. "So…what brings you two here?"

Before Harry could speak, Hermione blurted out, "We've been hoping to revive the Youth Masque, a festival this club used to host back when Terry's father was alive. Harry and I've been reading old newspaper articles about the 'Serpent's Tooth' ever since we left here. It's all so fascinating." Harry did his best not to look shocked as Hermione said this. She was getting so good with cover stories it was scary. "It was going to be a surprise for Terry, so if you wouldn't mention it…"

"I won't," Violet assured her quickly. "That is, if you won't say anything about my being here. Wouldn't want Terry to think I'd been so forgetful."

"Of course not," Harry answered, finally finding his voice after what seemed like hours of silence. "Hermione and I were just going to see if there was anything in Mr. Nichten-Teach's old files about the, er…" 'Youth Masque,' Hermione reminded him under her breath. "…so that we could help recreate the atmosphere a little better. I hope you don't mind."

As Violet assured them that she didn't, Hermione grabbed his arm and looked straight into his eyes. "Actually, Harry, I'm feeling rather tired. I think I'll take a seat and wait for you out here while you look through the files. After all, this was your idea." She seemed to be speaking to him, but her voice was louder than it needed to be, as if she was hoping that Violet would overhear.

"OK," Harry agreed in a rather confused tone of voice. Violet pointed them to the room she had just departed as the one they were looking for and, casting one last curious glance at Hermione, he entered the business offices of the 'Serpent's Tooth' and began to examine them.

The room he entered was small, dusty and mostly empty. It contained a large oak desk with a swivel chair behind it, two rows of book shelves which now contained precious few books, a plain wooden door that likely led to a closet and a huge file cabinet over by the corner. Harry's eyes roamed freely about the room, although nothing seemed immediately promising. The desk had nothing on it except an old calendar from 1988, a typewriter that was missing a few keys, an empty picture frame and a few pencils that had clearly been chewed. The desk drawers similarly revealed nothing of interest: paper for the typewriter, extra pencils and, Harry noted with disgust, more than a few mouse droppings.

Turning away from the desk, Harry Potter perused the shelves, finding only two books left on them: Norman Vincent Peale's "The Power of Positive Thinking," and William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar". 'Everyone's a Shakespeare fan,' Harry thought as a thin smile crossed his face. Harry then let out an anxious sigh as he faced the metal cabinet, which seemed even more enormous now that he'd walked across the room. He couldn't imagine how long finding anything relevant in there was going to take. Why wasn't Hermione here with him to at least cut down on his workload? She would have some explaining to do once he got out of here, and he found himself strangely enjoying the idea of interrogating her. Finding the first drawer he tried unlocked (luckily, as he doubted his master key would work in the tiny hole on the file drawer), he pulled hard on the handle…and was nearly knocked down by the force he exerted.

Staggering slightly, Harry peered into the cabinet drawer, only to discover that there was absolutely nothing in it. Puzzled, Harry looked in every other drawer in quick succession, finding nothing but dust. 'Why would you have this giant file cabinet at your disposal and not use it?' Harry thought to himself. The answer came to him in Hermione's voice as quickly as if the witch herself were there. 'Because you have somewhere else you want to keep your information, of course. Someplace better protected.'

Harry moved to face the door that was to the immediate right of the mysteriously empty file cabinet. Perhaps this wasn't to a closet after all. Harry opened the door timidly and stepped through to what seemed in the dark to be a large room, hoping he would find no one else who he didn't want to run across, like Atlas Filch for instance. Harry had his suspicions about him, and if he was anything like Argus…

Harry's fears seemed to be realized immediately, however, as the room was illuminated with artificial light. Someone else was here. Harry wondered if he should hide, but then thought better of it. He didn't know the place well and his cover story would likely work better if he acted as though his presence here was normal. He suddenly found himself wishing fervently that he had brought along his invisibility cloak.

But, as Harry waited for someone to confront him accusingly, he was surprised to discover that there was nobody there. The lights could have been programmed to come on automatically, but Harry was almost positive that it was done with magic. For one thing, he could see no lights emanating from the ceiling. And for another, this was clearly Atlas Filch's office, as evidenced by the nameplate on the spotless desk and the colourful portraits on the wall, which included one of Argus Filch. 'So that proves it,' Harry thought. 'They are related.'

Deciding to look around the decidedly brighter and more lived-in room, Harry found a wood file cabinet that was similar in size and height to the metal one in what he assumed must have been Frank Nichten-Teach's old office. Letting out a mental groan, Harry opened the topmost drawer and a file fell out almost immediately, its contents spilling all over the floor. He began to gather everything back together when a picture caught his interest. As he held it up to the strange light, his jaw dropped. It was a baby picture of Harry himself. 


	9. Let's talk about

Harry Potter's eyes fixated on the muggle photograph in front of him. He couldn't have been more than two years old and he was surrounded by Dursleys: an irate, red-faced Vernon who seemed as though he'd rather be anywhere but there, a surprisingly young and anxious-looking Petunia, and baby Dudley was, well…baby Dudley, just as he'd seen him in a hundred different pictures around the house growing up, only not in the center of the photo for once. Whoever had taken the picture clearly was interested in capturing him on film, despite the fact that all the Dursleys seemed to be pushing him into the background.

Dozens of thoughts flurried around in his head. Why hadn't he seen this photo before? Who had taken it? What was it doing here? Harry forced his eyes away from the picture for a moment and gathered the other items which had fallen out of the folder into his arms. Placing it on top of the wooden cabinet, Harry decided there would be time to answer these questions later, after he had done some more digging (and it would be better to try to answer them with Hermione around, Harry reminded himself). He went to open the same drawer to the file cabinet as he had opened before…only to find that he could no longer budge it.

"What!" Harry exclaimed in disbelief. He tugged at the handle again, but the drawer still would not move. It was as if someone had nailed it shut in the few moments it had taken him to recover the folder and examine the photograph. After a few valiant last efforts, Harry gave up trying. None of the other drawers opened for him either. 'Some kind of protection charm,' he thought to himself. 'It must be.' Realizing that he was not only denied access to further information, but that he would not be able to return the folder to its original location, either, Harry decided to simply take it with him so that he and Hermione could examine its contents together.

Harry stealthily made his way out of the Serpent's Tooth's business offices, careful not to disturb anything else that might indicate that someone had been in here that shouldn't have been. As he stepped outside the door, folder in hand, he saw that Violet was gone, but Hermione was sitting quietly at one of the tables, examining something small in her hands. When she caught sight of Harry, she shot him a surprised smile and beckoned him to sit down next to her. "That certainly was quick," Hermione pointed out, as her eyes darted between meeting Harry's and trying to take a peek at the manila folder in his hands. "What did you find out?"

Harry explained to her what few pertinent details he had learned: that Atlas Filch worked here, that Frank Nichten-Teach's office had been largely cleaned out and about the mysterious baby picture. Hermione, as Harry had expected, was most interested in the photograph. "Have you ever seen this photo before? At the Dursleys, or in your photo album you got from Hagrid?" Harry shook his head no. "How odd."

"It isn't that strange that the Dursleys wouldn't have wanted to keep this picture around," Harry said wistfully. "They've always made a point of losing pictures with me in them. You should have seen what they did with the ones I got from school before I went to Hogwarts." He let out a halfhearted chuckle. "But why would one of my old baby pictures end up in Atlas Filch's office? What am I to him?"

"It is an intriguing mystery," Hermione assured him, although her eyes continually darted to the folder he had swiped from Filch's office. "But it's not the one we came here to solve. So if you don't mind…" Hermione raised her eyebrows and the two of them immediately started looking at the information Harry had swiped.

Luckily for their cover story, there was a lot of information about the Youth Masque in here: what it was about, what activities went on, the winners for each year, etc. There was also a copy of the same story out of the London Times that Harry and Hermione had found in the Dursleys' garage. Joined to it with a paperclip, however, was another piece that he immediately brought to Hermione's attention. "'Serpent's Tooth' reopens as a gentleman's club,'" Harry read aloud. "'Attempting to overcome the nefarious image it took on after becoming associated with a grisly double murder last year, club owner Frank Nichten-Teach announced that his establishment would be altering his clientele to serve an older crowd…'" Harry screwed up his nose curiously. "That's odd. You'd think a little thing like a murder investigation would shut the place down for good. Wonder why he bothered to try to change the image?"

"I don't know," Hermione replied honestly, her eyes never leaving the sheets of paper in front of her. "But apparently it worked out well for Mr. Nichten-Teach and Mr. Filch. Their profit margin skyrocketed once they converted the place to an adult club." She then frowned one of her trademark suspicious frowns. "Frank Nichten-Teach's signature gets less and less frequent on these financial records. It's as though he was being phased out."

Harry wasn't listening to her anymore. His entire attention was focused on a photograph. Hermione glanced up for a moment and let out a small sigh. "Harry, I know your baby picture is fascinating to you, but I'm certain there are other relevant artifacts in this folder. If you would just…"

Harry shook his head dumbly and this seemingly interrupted her. "It's not my baby photo." Gently, he laid the photograph in front of Hermione.

"Your mother?" Hermione questioned, and although she got no response, she knew that this was indeed Lily Evans. Hermione's hands flew to Harry's pile of information and what she read there made her eyes go wider. "Harry, her costume took top prize twenty years ago. The year that her parents were murdered." Her eyes turned sad as they examined the image of Harry's mother from what seemed like so long ago. "She was Juliet." A half-smile broke out across her face. "But your dad was Mercutio. Not exactly traditional, was he?" She looked up at Harry expectantly.

Harry couldn't really put his finger on what he was feeling at that exact moment, except that he was exceptionally worried about Hermione. "Are you sure you want to go through with this, Hermione?" he asked her softly. "The last time something like this happened, people were murdered," the word felt cold and harsh in Harry's mouth, "and nobody had to use the Killing Curse to do it. This is the Muggle world, Hermione. It may seem like less can happen to us here than in the Wizarding world, but killers can be just as dangerous and we can't use magic to combat them. We're out of our element."

Hermione bit her lip and shot him an inquisitive look. "Why are you telling me this, Harry?"

"I'm just giving you a chance to back out," Harry explained apologetically. "I know when you agreed to spend time with me this summer that this wasn't what you had in mind. It would be a lot safer for you if I did this alone."

"Are you 'backing out'?" Hermione asked him with derision in her voice, as if he had just suggested she switch houses from Gryffindor to Slytherin.

"I can't," Harry said with a sigh. "They were my grandparents. Whatever happened to them, whatever my parents were involved in, it could be happening all over again. I can't just walk away from that. I can't pretend like it's nothing."

"Then neither can I," Hermione retorted stubbornly. Before Harry could say anything else to dissuade her, she grabbed his hand and pulled him up. "Come on. We're done here. But we do have a lot of planning to do."

"Planning?" Harry asked, a puzzled expression dominating his forehead. "For what?"

Hermione smiled disarmingly. "Why, the Youth Masque, of course."

Following Hermione's advice, early the next morning Harry Potter wrote a letter to his former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin, asking for his own recollections about that summer and anything else that might help he and Hermione understand exactly what it was that had happened. Harry stuffed his quill back into his knapsack of school supplies as he finished up the letter, tied the note to Hedwig's leg and sent her off to find Professor Lupin.

As Harry watched her fly off, a slight twinge of sadness overcame him. 'Sirius would have probably known about it, too,' he thought wistfully. 'He was my father's best friend. He would have been the perfect person to ask.' If only he hadn't rushed off to be the hero, Harry would have had the chance. There was no point in dwelling on it now, however. Sirius was gone.

Unhappily, Harry turned his attention back to the book in front of him. It was an illustrated history of Medieval costumes that Hermione had checked out for him out of a muggle library, with instructions for him to pick out a costume he might like to wear. Given that Hermione was planning and organizing everything else about the Youth Masque, it really didn't seem fair for Harry to be resentful of the fact that he had to do this, but nonetheless it struck him as completely pointless. However, when he had suggested that he simply go as "Spiderman or something", Hermione had given him such a disgusted look (one she usually reserved only for Ron) that he agreed to choose an authentic costume on his own.

None of these muggle outfits particularly suited his fancy, although Harry thought it might be worth a laugh to go as a wizard (or at least how muggles thought wizards dressed). However, about the time he had completely given up, he caught a reference to the Lady of the Lake and his eyes quickly fell upon a rather dashing knight's costume. "Sir Lancelot," Harry read aloud. He seemed to recall the name from one of the accounts of Merlin's life in Professor Binns' History of Magic class, but, as he usually repressed anything related to that particular class, he couldn't remember anything specific about the knight. No matter. One costume was as good as the other, he supposed.

As he pushed the thick tome underneath his bed, he barely noticed as another one was slammed in front of him by Vernon Dursley. His uncle's face was already red, but he didn't look angry. As a matter of fact, he looked…scared. Harry couldn't imagine why, as he hadn't done any magic in a while, he hadn't received any owls from anyone and there had been no dementors (or dementoids, as his slightly clueless Uncle Vernon called them) in sight all summer. Then he looked down at the book in front of him.

"'Growing and Being'?" Harry questioned as a frown filled his face. The frown only grew as he examined its contents. "What kind of a book is this?"

"It's as I feared, Petunia," Vernon told his wife as if Harry wasn't in the room. "They haven't taught him anything at that freak school of his about…that thing."

"What thing?" Harry asked indignantly. His voice seemingly shocked the two of them, as they recoiled slightly from the sound of it. Maybe they had forgotten he was there.

"I…it's alright to be confused," Aunt Petunia told him in what came very close to passing for a sympathetic voice. "Just look over the book and if you have any questions, feel free to come to us."

Uncle Vernon shot his wife a reproachful look. "Yes, well, perhaps Dudley might be better with that sort of thing. It is his textbook, after all."

"What are you going on about?" Harry demanded to know, confused as all get out. "Why are you giving me one of Dudley's old schoolbooks and why would I want to ask him any questions? None of this makes any sense!"

Instead of answering his questions, however, the Dursleys promptly retreated from his bedroom as quickly and quietly as they had arrived. This left Harry alone with the book and his own befuddlement. He considered placing the textbook on his shelf and forgetting about it for the time being. However, he had taken a shorter time than he had expected to choose his costume for the Youth Masque, and Hermione wouldn't be here for another hour, so he cracked the book open and examined its contents.

After looking over the text for about ten minutes, Harry was officially unimpressed. Sure, there were some technical terms he had been unaware of, but most of this stuff he had found out from conversations with Dean and Seamus over some of their longer games of exploding snap. 'Alright, so some of it might have been exaggeration, but still, I can't believe the Dursleys thought I made it almost to sixteen without knowing…'

And then it occurred to him. The reason they had given him the book. Hermione. They were afraid he might do things like…uh…that illustration on page 167 (the one that had "Don't Do This!" written in marker over it)…with Hermione.

Harry nearly laughed aloud. Oh, he knew that the Dursleys thought that Hermione was his girlfriend (and, in fact, if they didn't think so it would have been extremely difficult for them to meet over the summer), but he had no idea they had them convinced this thoroughly. I mean, he and Hermione weren't even acting differently around each other.

Harry froze. If it was so easy for the Dursleys to believe that he and Hermione were dating without them doing anything special around each other, what did it say about their relationship? Did it say anything at all? 'Or does it say everything?' Harry asked himself. Wait, where had that thought come from?

Harry shook his head as if to clear it. No, it couldn't be. Hermione had feelings for Ron. She was planning to ask him out once they went back to Hogwarts. That was that. Hermione couldn't be his girlfriend. She was about to become Ron's.

Feeling as if this should put the matter to rest, Harry rose to his feet, stretched and left the muggle textbook 'Growing and Being' sitting next to his bed. Taking more care to choose his clothing than he normally did, Harry found his way to the shower, turned the water all the way to hot and stepped in.

Thinking about how lucky he was to have an ample supply of water again after how horribly hot and dry it was last summer, Harry took an especially long shower, letting the water run over his head and shoulders. He toweled off and dressed quickly, getting a sinking feeling in his stomach that he was running a tad late. Sure enough, when he emerged from the loo, there was Hermione looking irritable and flustered.

"Can you believe that that idiot cousin of yours still wants to try and impress me?" Hermione asked, as the two of them exited the Dursley household and made their way to her green moped. "It's like he's trying to steal me away from you or something."

A thought suddenly struck Harry like a thunderbolt. He didn't want Ron to date Hermione. He wanted her for himself. "Yeah," Harry replied, his mouth suddenly going dry. "I can believe it." 


	10. Sympathy for Snape

Harry Potter had had a rough week. His anxiety over the impending prospect of Auburn Summer arriving was growing by the day, as despite their best efforts, he and Hermione had discovered precious little about what it was, who had orchestrated it last time and what the two of them might do to stop it. Their only hope was the Youth Masque, which Hermione hoped would do something to attract the culprit from twenty years ago. Harry had mixed feelings about their upcoming costume party, however, as while it seemed like a reasonable plan to bring the killer out into the open by recreating events from that summer, the frantic planning Hermione was putting into it meant she was spending less time with him than he might like.

Given his newfound affection for Hermione, any amount of time they spent together now seemed far too short...or perhaps far too long, as Harry had to hide how he felt as best he could. He had tried telling himself numerous times that there was no use in having romantic feelings for her, as she very clearly wanted to be with Ron. This did not appear to be a winning strategy, however, as Harry was sweating profusely and becoming increasingly tongue-tied in her presence and was now sitting at his desk not writing a reply letter to Remus Lupin, as was his intent, but doodling Hermione's name across his parchment idly.

Aside from thinking about Hermione, telling himself not to think about Hermione, and then thinking about Hermione some more anyway, Harry had accomplished next to nothing in a week's time. He had not even attempted to get hold of a Sir Lancelot outfit, eventually confessing to Hermione on their last outing together that he had no idea where to look. Harry was secretly delighted when she then announced with a sigh that they would have to spend an extra day together picking out their costumes. That was what was on their agenda for today, other than the usual morning quidditch practice and doing as much digging as they could about Auburn Summer.

Today, however, Harry had two bits of news to deliver to Hermione. One involved the aforementioned Professor Lupin, who had finally answered Harry's owl of a week earlier. After the usual greetings (as well as the increasingly typical "How are you?" that Harry no longer knew how to answer), Lupin explained that Harry's parents had told him very little of what happened over the so-called auburn summer, owing to a "bit of a falling out between myself and your father around that same time." Harry's former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher did not elaborate, but the idea of the Marauders not getting along while they were at Hogwarts did not sit well with Harry, and a frown crossed his face every time he thought about it. 

Other than this puzzling piece of information, Remus Lupin had sent him a large volume called Muggle Use of Magic Over the Centuries. The book was nearly nine hundred pages long and contained several large sections dealing with auburn summer, or at least so Professor Lupin told him in the letter. Harry was waiting for Hermione to arrive before actually examining its contents, as he was not typically as adept at deciphering lengthy literary works as she was. With so much text to examine, he often misinterpreted what he was reading, which sometimes led to disastrous consequences.

Harry shoved the thick tome into his knapsack between a spare set of clothes (he had learned his lesson from the 'Violet Mogle in the lake' incident) and his transfigured hummingbird snitch, which fluttered around restlessly, as if preparing itself for Quidditch practice. As he walked wordlessly past the Dursleys, he remembered talking to Aunt Petunia only last night about the mysterious photograph he found in the offices of the Serpent's Tooth, which brought his mind quickly to the other piece of info he had for Hermione. The Dursleys had met Frank Nichten-Teach and it had been he who had taken the photo.

"Oh yes," Aunt Petunia said with a rarely achieved look of haughty disgust on her face. "He seemed quite taken with you. Apparently he knew your parents and thought well of them." She let out a contemptuous sniff. "Aside from that, he was a nice fellow. A bit cold perhaps, but very polite and cultured."

"Why don't I remember him?" Harry asked, as much to himself as to Aunt Petunia.

Aunt Petunia unexpectedly answered him. "He stopped coming to visit right around the time you were learning to talk. Became quite ill, I believe." As Aunt Petunia shook her head, Harry tried his best to hide the confusion that had to be showing on his face. "Shame about that, really. We sent him a card."

Breaking from the usual tradition of waiting inside for Hermione to ring the doorbell and retrieve him, Harry ventured outside and sat on the front step, turning things over in his mind. Why had Frank Nichten-Teach come to visit him as a baby? Aside from posing this question to Hermione, he was going to have to ask Terry about it the next time he saw him. His curiosity, on that subject at least, shouldn't rouse the young club owner's suspicions. And then there was the matter of Professor Lupin's revelation. The vagueness of it frustrated Harry, so much so that he felt as though he needed to have a conversation in person with his father's old friend as soon as possible. Perhaps he could ask Hermione to take him over to Grimmauld Place...

As soon as Hermione's name crossed his mind, he saw the familiar mint green moped out of the corner of his eye. Harry did not even try to stop himself from flashing a wide grin. "Hermione!" he called as she dismounted to walk towards him. His heart was pounding and his palms were getting sweaty again. Harry shoved his hands in his pockets so that she hopefully wouldn't notice. "Erm, how are you?" he asked somewhat lamely.

"I'm fine, Harry," she answered earnestly, looking him over as though something might be the matter. Once she decided that there wasn't, a slightly amused look crossed her face. "What are you smiling about?"

Harry cursed himself. He had forgotten about that stupid grin on his face. This 'concealing your feelings' bit was hard work. "Nothing," he answered too quickly. Harry then added, "There are just some things that I need to tell you and I have a book for you to look at, too." It might have been his imagination, but Harry could have sworn that this wasn't how he had talked to Hermione before he realized he wanted to snog her senseless. He had some faint recollection of having said somewhat clever things to her in times past, so why couldn't he think of any now?

"Show it to me later, Harry," Hermione instructed lightly. "We've got to get moving. And I'm afraid we're going to have to cut Quidditch practice a bit short today."

Harry considered whether or not he should make a remark about how Dumbledore's transfigured snitch would have more control over the matter than he would, but decided that he would just mess it up if he tried to say it aloud. "Uh, OK." He then managed to climb aboard the moped behind Hermione without further embarrassment.

The ride over to the enchanted forest where he had been practicing Quidditch gave Harry the sensation of being comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time, courtesy of his arms being tightly wrapped around Hermione's waist. How on earth did he manage this before without going crazy? 'I had just never thought about her that way,' Harry thought to himself. 'I really am a clueless git.'

Remembering Hermione's advise to keep his practice time to a minimum, Harry caught the snitch easily in under a half an hour, after spending most of his time speeding around on his broom to release some of the tension from his body. He wasn't as proud of his new personal best time as he might have been (mostly because the words "Accio snitch" might have been muttered under his breath at some point), but flying always gave him such a powerful jolt of energy in the morning that he felt disspirited when he had to skip it. Landing the Nimbus 2000 that had been her gift to him right next to Hermione, Harry stashed it behind a tree and turned back to her quickly, hoping to find out what she had learned from the book Lupin had given them. "Find anything?" Harry asked as casually as possible.

"Quite a lot, actually," Hermione answered, her eyes as bright as they usually were after she'd just been reading something that interested her. Wait, when had he started noticing that? "Apparently auburn summer started as a blood purity ritual for muggle-borns and half-bloods," Hermione's scorn was written all over her face as she said this, "but then when muggles got themselves involved..." She closed the book abruptly. "I can tell you the rest later. Right now we need to get to London. I promised Mrs. O'Connor that we'd be there by 10:30 and it's already..." A worried frown filled Hermione's face as she looked down at her watch in dismay and her tone took that soft whine that it often did when she was concerned about him. 'I've grown to adore that whine,' Harry thought pleasantly. "Well, never mind how late it is. We have to go! Hop on." Harry didn't have to be told twice, although the thought that it might have been fun to make her do so crossed his mind fleetingly.

Harry and Hermione soon found themselves entering a quaint little costume shop that wasn't located far from Diagon Alley. The sign outside read "Polly's", which was presumably Mrs. O'Connor's first name. Although it seemed from the outside as though the store couldn't be that large, the amount of space inside nearly overwhelmed Harry. All sorts of costumes, ranging from those for little muggle children (mostly fairy outfits and other such trifles, although Harry was amused to see at least one Spiderman outfit) to very elaborately designed ball gowns and other, more adult-oriented, attire. Harry guessed that Mrs. O'Connor would be unlikely to go bankrupt anytime soon.

Hermione offered a simple greeting and introduced Harry to Mrs. O'Connor. The costume shop owner, who Harry noticed wore a lot of make-up despite the fact that she would probably be reasonably attractive without it, already knew who Harry Potter was, as did most everyone else on the planet Earth who knew anything about the magical world. "I know we'd already discussed what I was looking for, but I was wondering...do you have any knight costumes? We were searching for Sir Lancelot in particular, but I suppose any one would do."

The older woman reached for something that was hanging on one of the lower racks and withdrew it from behind a row of leotards. It was a simple cloth facsimile of a suit of armor which bore a red and yellow coat of arms on the chest that was reminiscent of the Gryffindor colours. Harry thought it was perfect and was just about to tell Mrs. O'Connor so when Hermione let loose one of her trademark scowls. "That's fine for young children, I suppose. But do you have anything with real armour?" Harry looked at Hermione as though she had temporarily gone batty. "Nothing too cumbersome, mind you. Just maybe some light chain mail?"

Hermione's eyes flittered between Mrs. O'Connor and Harry, but instead of meeting his confused gaze, she seemed to be focusing on his scar in a way that she usually didn't. In fact, she was one of the only ones who almost never looked at his scar, except when it was hurting him, as it did so often last year. Harry frowned at her for a moment, but then realized she was subtly using his status as the famous Harry Potter to get what she wanted. Finally, Mrs. O'Connor consented with a sigh. "I'll see what I have in the back."

As the costume shop owner departed, leaving Harry alone with Hermione, he turned to face her with an utterly perplexed expression written all over his face. "What exactly was that all about!"

"Auburn summer, Harry," Hermione explained in a patient half-whisper. "It turns out that your choice of costume might have been brilliant, even if you didn't know it yet. Chain mail armour was sometimes used successfully to protect potential victims of the ritual sacrifice."

"Ritual sacrifice?" Harry questioned reflexively. "What...?" But before he could finish, Mrs. O'Connor had returned with a bulky-looking costume that Harry knew he would have a difficult time squeezing into.

"Here you are, Mr. Potter," she informed him coolly. "You may change in the back. Third booth to your left." Harry felt as though a tonne of bricks had been dropped into his arms as he managed to tote the suit of armour towards the rear of the shop. 'Why didn't she just leave it back there and tell me where it was?' Harry groused inwardly as he walked with his knees bent slightly from the weight of the metal suit as he lugged it in the general direction of the dressing rooms. "Now, Miss Granger. As to your costume..."

As Harry dropped the suit of armour unceremoniously on the floor, he suddenly realized he had given no thought whatever to what Hermione would be wearing to the Youth Masque. Suddenly visions of her Yule Ball dress flooded his memory and it was a few minutes before Harry realized that both Mrs. O'Connor and his best friend would be expecting him to come out sometime soon fully armoured. With a sigh, he began devoting himself to the task at hand, managing to slip some of the more accessible parts of the costume onto his extremities with little difficulty. After a little more struggling, tugging and some pinching (not to mention an unfortunate mishap with the visor and his glasses which would likely take an "occulis reparo" to correct), Harry was fully suited up.

Taking a look at himself in a conveniently placed full-length mirror, Harry Potter felt completely and utterly ridiculous. Pushing his visor up over his glasses much more carefully than he had last time to take a better look, he thought he resembled nothing so much as one of the scared young knights from the portraits in the Astronomy tower that Sir Cadogan seemed to enjoy terrorizing so much. Staggering slightly as he exited the changing room, Harry began to question whether this costume was really such a great idea after all. 'But then, Hermione said it was brilliant,' Harry thought to himself, his heart suddenly lighter. As he returned to the front room of Mrs. O'Connor's costume shop, he continuously pushed his visor up and forced his metal-encased legs to step laboriously forward, hoping to catch a glimpse of Hermione in whatever outfit it was she had chosen for herself.

Just as he turned a corner, Harry heard Hermione call his name in that oh-so-familiar way...just as his visor clamped shut over his eyes. His gloved hands struggled with his helmet valiantly, attempting to pry it open as best they could, but to no avail. Eventually he felt Hermione's hands cover his own and, after a few moments of awkward fumbling, they managed to shove the visor back to the top of the plumed helmet. Harry blinked his eyes furiously as they adjusted to the light and took in Hermione's form in front of him. "Well?" she asked, a twinge of nervousness entering her voice. "What do you think?"

Harry was speechless. Hermione wore a small straw hat with a red ribbon around it, a very frilly white silk blouse with buttons that held it tightly closed all the way from her neck down, and a very strange-looking set of baggy pants. "It's nice, Hermione. I like it," Harry lied. "But, uh, what exactly are you supposed to be?"

"I'm a suffragette," she announced, for all the world as though Harry should know what she was talking about. His confusion must have showed itself on his face, because Hermione looked at him with exasperation. "I'll tell you what it is later." She then stood back and took a good look at Harry dressed in what was now feeling very much like an oversized tin can. Hermione must have agreed, as she seemed to be stifling laughter. "You look very...dashing, Harry."

Harry suppressed a groan. The only thing 'dashing' about this costume so far as Harry was concerned was the dashing he'd be doing to get out of it, assuming he could even get his legs to move that fast. "I suppose the only thing left for us to do," Hermione mused thoughtfully, "is figure out how we're going to get this back to the Dursleys'."

If Hermione hadn't been here to do his thinking, Harry realized he would have been sunk. The thought of how to transport this clanky monstrosity away from the shop had never occurred to him, and the mint green moped that had carried them around for nearly a month clearly didn't have the room for it. "Maybe we shouldn't take it back to Privet Drive," Harry suggested, his mind wandering to the Dursleys' reaction as he lugged a suit of armour up and down their staircase. "Maybe we could stow it somewhere. Your house...or the Serpent's Tooth, maybe?"

A stormy look seemed to appear on Hermione's face for a moment, but then it disappeared. "Alright," she told him cheerfully, then turned and walked across the store to say something to Mrs. O'Connor. Harry took a long look at Hermione's suffragette outfit as it looked from behind and wondered idly what kind of outfit he had expected her to pick. 'Something very feminine and revealing, no doubt,' a somewhat Snape-like voice of cynicism resounded in his head. Harry shook his head as a half-smile formed on his lips. That just wouldn't have been Hermione's style.

"It's settled then," Hermione announced as she returned with Mrs. O'Connor in tow. "My mum will pick up the knight outfit tomorrow while we're out doing...other things." Hermione flushed suddenly and Harry's brow furrowed in confusion.

Harry walked to the front counter and paid for their costumes with galleons he had withdrawn from Gringotts earlier in the day. "I don't normally allow pick up for anyone other than the customer themselves," Mrs. O'Connor remarked somewhat airily, "but seeing as it is you, Mr. Potter, and she is your girlfriend..."

"She's not my..." Harry started, but then remembered their cover. "I mean, she is my..." But wait, did he need to maintain the illusion that they were dating (even though Harry no longer wanted it to be an illusion) for someone in the know about the wizarding world? And how on Earth did people with cover stories keep them straight? He suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for Snape, but suppressed it quickly. "Er, thanks," he finished awkwardly as he took the receipt from her hands.

As he returned to Hermione's side, Harry shot her a questioning glare. "So, just what are these 'other things' we'll be doing tomorrow?"

Hermione's cheeks went pink again and she let out a small sigh. "Well, I was going to save it for a birthday surprise," Hermione began tentatively, and Harry only now realized he had completely forgotten about his birthday being tomorrow. Where was all the time going? And why was he suddenly getting ideas about what he wanted this 'birthday surprise' to be? "But now...I suppose since you know something's up...oh, Harry, we're going to the Burrow!" 


	11. A Visit to the Love Interest Factory

Harry Potter was forcing himself to think about the time that the Weasleys stole their father's illegal flying car to rescue him from the Dursleys, the second task from the Triwizard Tournament, or last year when Ron's magnificent performance as Keeper won Gryffindor the Quidditch Cup. He needed to focus on times in his life when he was actually thrilled to see Ronald Weasley, his best friend. Because now definitely wasn't one of those times.

'This is completely stupid,' Harry chided himself. 'I've been to the Burrow before. I'm fine with Ron. He's my best mate.' Plastering a smile that was a little too wide on his face, Harry ventured through the front door of the Weasleys' quaint cottage that had been, up until this moment, his favourite place in the world aside from Hogwarts. Expecting to see a grinning Ron flanked by a doting Mrs. Weasley as he entered, Harry was not at all disappointed to see that Fred and George were the only Weasleys present. They wore festive birthday hats and sat in front of a large cake that must have said "Happy Birthday Harry" at one point but which now read, "Happy Girthday Ha."

"The 'girthday' is in honor of that cousin of yours," either Fred or George (Harry could never tell them apart and he doubted anyone else could either) explained slyly.

"And the 'Ha' means that we started eating the cake without you," the other one said, wiping frosting from the side of his face.

"It's all Mum's fault, really," the first Weasley twin said in a mock serious tone of voice. "Had to rush off for important Order business. No time to make breakfast."

Harry stopped fighting the genuinely large grin that was threatening to cross his lips. "Couldn't be expected to make it yourselves, I suppose?"

"Course not! We're bachelors now, Harry. It's proud bachelor tradition to let the fairer sex handle things like cooking and cleaning while you make a complete pig out of yourself."

"Speaking of girls, where's Hermione? Wasn't she supposed to be coming with you?"

Harry swallowed quickly, his throat suddenly becoming somewhat dry and constricted. "Yeah, she's trying to figure out where to park the moped." The twins looked like they wanted to make sarcastic remarks about her mode of transportation, so Harry changed the subject. "So, any word from Percy? I'll bet he's changed his tune a bit."

Fred and George smiled mischievously.

"Percy hasn't come around much this summer. Something's put him quite off."

"It might be the fact that we charmed his owl to fly around his head shrieking 'Percy is a prat'."

"Or the paste-filled pastries we left him on his birthday."

"Can't imagine he's happy with all of those dungbomb-spewing howlers we've sent him, either."

"Brilliant idea, those. Can't believe they're not selling better at the shop."

"Don't forget that the customers can actually smell the things."

"Right. Maybe we should work on that."

"So, I take it Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes is doing well?" Harry asked with more than a little curiosity seeping into his voice. After all, it had been his galleons that financed the venture.

"Swimmingly," one of the twins answered with a way-too-pleased-with-himself grin. "So well in fact that we have to go back. Can't trust the help to rake in the galleons for too long, you know. Might give them ideas that they can mind the store on their own, without us constantly ordering them around."

"Give Hermione our love." Before they disapparated, the other twin said, "Wait, didn't we tell Ron the same thing?"

"We did," he replied with a nod. "The poor girl's bound to be confused now."

Harry sighed as the two of them vanished, leaving Harry standing alone in the dining area of the Burrow. At that moment, Hermione seemingly appeared as if from nowhere behind him, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Where is everyone?"

"You just missed Fred and George," Harry explained, briefly relating their exchange (although he could never do their banter justice). "The other adult Weasleys seem to be at some kind of meeting of the Order of the Phoenix. I reckon Ron and Ginny are upstairs." Harry cast a tentative look up the staircase. "Also, Percy's still a prat."

Hermione snorted. "That's hardly what I'd call surprising."

At that moment, Ron yelled "Surprise!" from the top of the staircase. Harry sent his best mate an anxious sort of smile while Hermione scowled. "Honestly, Ron. It's not a surprise birthday party if the person knows where they're going to celebrate and who's going to be there."

"He didn't know for sure I was going to be here!" Ron exclaimed indignantly. "There is a war going on, you know. I could have been kidnapped by Death Eaters and held for ransom!" Hermione glared daggers at Ron and indicated Harry's horrified expression at this thought. "Not that that's likely to happen, of course." Ron looked increasingly nervous as Hermione continued to stare icily at him. "Hey, look, here's the real surprise! Your present. Happy birthday, Harry."

Hermione inched closer to Ron as he handed off the badly wrapped birthday gift to Harry. "Ron, can we talk? Alone?"

"Can't it wait?" Ron asked in a stage whisper that Harry could hear without difficulty. "I want to see the look on Harry's face when he opens his present."

"Is it a book about Quidditch?" Hermione asked frankly. Ron suddenly looked defeated. Muttering something about "let's go" and "ruining surprises", the two of them ascended the staircase, away from Harry and most likely to Ron's bedroom. Harry hated the symbolism of it all.

"I'll send Ginny down to keep you company," Ron called from upstairs. "You should really see her in that new outfit of hers. It's wicked!"

'Great,' Harry thought. 'First Hermione runs off with Ron the first chance she gets, now I'm stuck with Ginny as the consolation prize.' Not that he had anything against Ginny Weasley, mind you. Except that she wasn't as good a Seeker as him. And there was that whole thing with her being possessed by Voldemort and opening the Chamber of Secrets. I mean, mistaking something with Voldemort in it for just a simple diary? How thick could you get! But other than that, he was completely fine with Ginny.

'I miss Hermione already,' Harry thought glumly. Forcing himself to open Ron's present, he found himself tearing small bits of paper and ribbon to pieces until it was obvious that Ron's gift was indeed a Quidditch book called Golden Wings of Glory: The 100 Greatest Seekers of All Time. Pulling the volume from the remaining taped-together bits of paper, Harry opened it to find a note from Ron inside. "Harry, check out page 289. That's you, mate! All the best on your 16th. Ron." Flipping to the part of the book Ron had mentioned, Harry saw his name in a list of "Seekers to Watch", along with Viktor Krum and some other names Harry didn't recognize, but Ron probably would have.

'Ron,' Harry thought to himself. 'Why do you have to be such a good friend to me? Why do we both have to fancy Hermione? Why did I have to start fancying her? Why couldn't I have fallen for...for...' His brain struggled to come up with someone acceptible and at that moment who should appear at the top of the staircase but Ginny Weasley. As she cascaded downwards, practically floating down each step as though a delicate flower were being carried softly by a breeze across the meadow on a warm spring day, Harry watched in amazement as he took in the sight of the young woman in the 'new outfit' Ron had mentioned. It was indeed 'wicked'. Harry's reaction was visceral. Once he found the ability to speak, he beckoned to her like a swallow to its mate in the treetop.

"Ginny," he spoke her name throatily. "Don't you think it's a bit presumptious to be wearing chaser's robes already? Particularly before we've had tryouts... and in front of the new Quidditch captain!"

"Presumptious!" Ginny demanded as she stomped her foot. "And so what about the tryouts? I've already..." Her eyes widened noticeably as she suddenly realized everything Harry had said. "You're...you're the new Quidditch captain for Gryffindor?"

Harry tried hard to hide his amusement, but ultimately failed. "No, Ginny. I've switched houses. I'm now the Slytherin Quidditch captain." A playful smirk dominated his features. "Naturally, Malfoy will have to be demoted. I think I'll make him the bloke who serves pumpkin juice to the players on the sidelines. I'm sure Crabbe and Goyle will be thrilled."

Ginny gave him a sheepish grin, as if knowing she had to salvage something out of the awkwardness that now existed between them. "Well, just as long as you can get them to stop singing 'Weasley is Our King'." Harry returned a smile that was more polite than genuine, and he stole a longing glance at the Weasleys' fireplace, suddenly remembering that he wanted to use the Floo Network to get a chance to talk to Professor Lupin. He would probably have to wait until the older Weasleys returned so he would know when the meeting of the Order was over. Then he would seize his chance to visit Grimmauld Place before Arthur and Molly could smother him with affection and well-meaning birthday wishes, none of which he had any desire to deal with right now.

But he couldn't do any of that with Ginny here. He needed to get rid of her. Fast.

"Ginny," Harry said in a commanding tone that somehow remained soft and soothing. He'd have to remember this voice for when he gave pep talks before Quidditch matches. "Maybe you should change out of your robes and into something...else. Then you could come back down and we could talk for a while." He had to force himself not to add the words 'I guess' at the end, knowing how they would sound.

"Sure," Ginny responded meekly and practically bounded up the stairs back to her room. Harry thought of calling after her, 'And find out what Ron and Hermione are talking about up there,' but decided against it. He didn't need to know. It wasn't any of his business.

'Yeah, right,' Harry thought to himself. 'In some other universe where I don't have romantic feelings for Hermione, Ron and Hermione are no longer my best friends and the two of them aren't my entire support system when anything Voldemort-related comes up.' Harry considered for a moment what it might be like to live in this universe when he heard Bill and Charlie Weasley pop in.

As he attempted to sneak past the two oldest Weasley siblings to get to the fireplace, he overheard Bill saying, "That's not fair to her and you know it!"

Luckily Bill and Charlie weren't really all that close to the chimney, tucked as they were towards the back of the kitchen as though preparing a meal. "It's entirely fair! You're forgetting that I met her before you did, back when I was helping Dumbledore with the Triwizard Tournament. And let me tell you, she had every boy at Hogwarts on the hook, including your little brother!"

Harry tried desperately to ignore the details of their argument as he emptied his pockets on the dining table, making sure that he didn't take anything with him to Grimmauld Place that he might leave behind by mistake. As he removed his wand from his pocket, he noticed it had picked up a rather interesting accessory. The story he had told the Dursleys was that he was going to stay overnight with the Grangers and so, in keeping with their new obsession, they made sure he had the necessary 'protection' before he left. With some small measure of embarrassment, Harry saw that his wand had pierced the packaging and he now had a prophylactic dangling from the end of it. He proceeded to quickly separate the two and placed them as well as some spare muggle money on the table.

As Harry grabbed a handful of floo powder from what he assumed was an urn used to contain it (he was desperately hoping it wasn't the ashes of some long-departed Weasley), he wondered how Ron would react to the knowledge that Charlie was throwing his old Fleur crush around to her current boyfriend, who happened to be his older brother. Not well, he imagined. Also, was arguing some kind of sport in the Weasley household?

Harry held his hand out in front of him as he stepped into the fireplace. He stayed at the Burrow just long enough to hear Molly Weasley arrive. "What are you two boys having a row about?" she demanded, just as he said the words "Number 12 Grimmauld Place," and let the powder fly from his hand.

Appearing suddenly in the floo at Grimmauld Place, Harry wasn't sure just what to expect. Part of him hoped that he wouldn't see Kreacher again, but another part fervently wished that he would, so that he could make the house elf pay for his role in Sirius' death. Somehow, however, it struck him as appropriate that all he saw was Remus Lupin, sitting in an armchair by what would have been the fire had it been lit, patiently waiting for Harry to arrive. His face looked sunken and his eyes betrayed a weariness that Harry had only seen glimpses of before. Grimmauld Place itself cast a pall over what would have ordinarily been a very cozy atmosphere.

"Hello, Professor," Harry offered with a small smile as he climbed out of the fireplace and dusted himself off.

Lupin's face didn't brighten. "You needn't be so formal, Harry," the older man chided him lightly. "Remus will do just fine."

"Remus it is then," Harry replied with a half-hearted chuckle, his arms swinging at his side nervously. Lupin indicated that he should sit and he did so, although the feeling of restlessness that was possessing him at that moment didn't much agree with that decision. He felt like pacing across the room and yelling out all of his problems, but upon reflection he realized that probably wouldn't do him any good. Not to mention the fact that it would make Professor Lupin think he was nutters.

"I suppose I know why you're here," the former DADA teacher pointed out with a sigh, the fingers of his right hand gripping his forehead as his elbow rested on the arm of the chair, making it look as though he had a severe headache. 'Or like I do when my scar hurts,' Harry mused. "I wasn't exactly very forthcoming in my letter about why your father and I, erm, didn't exactly see eye to eye in our last year at Hogwarts."

Harry nodded slowly. He had a kind of sinking feeling in his stomach, as though he knew something terrible was coming. "Did this...Is this why you weren't the Secret Keeper for Mum and Dad? Why it had to be between Sirius and Peter Pettigrew?" Harry had a hard time hiding his revulsion as he spoke the name of the traitorous Marauder.

"What!" Lupin looked as though his body had just experienced a sudden shock. "No, Harry, that's...that's a story for another time. No, I'm afraid the rift between myself and your father had to do with Lily."

"My mother?" For some reason, his left hand reached up to touch the scar on his forehead. "What about her? Did she...Remus, did she do something? Something wrong?"

Remus Lupin laughed aloud. "No, Harry. It wasn't anything Lily did." His eyes darted around, seemingly trying to meet Harry's eyes but only succeeding in fixating on the chair he was sitting in or the fireplace next to him. "It was me. I..." Lupin stammered, floundering in his words and Harry found himself wishing he would just spit it out, whatever it was. "Harry, I was in love with her." 


	12. Odd Man Out

"At first I thought it was just a crush," Remus Lupin explained as he and Harry Potter sat by the fireplace at 12 Grimmauld Place. A palpable tension had filled the room and Harry didn't know quite how to react to the words that were spilling out of his former Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher's mouth. "I certainly wouldn't have been the only one who fancied Lily Evans. She was quite popular, particularly for someone so studious. Those who make Head Boy or Head Girl are usually reserved, withdrawn or awkward in social situations. But not Lily. She was very much the opposite."

He waited a moment, almost expecting Harry to express rage or disgust or betrayal. Instead, he said nothing, as if he were naturally expecting Lupin to say more. "I thought that, being an infatuation, it would pass with time. It didn't. It only grew." Remus let a bitter laugh escape him. "Keep in mind, Harry, that I wasn't exactly a big hit with the ladies. I had James Potter and Sirius Black as best friends, after all, and who would want me with them around? They were adventurous, funny, handsome, everything that I wasn't. Well, except perhaps for the adventurous part. I was a Gryffindor after all."

"Then there was the fact that I am a werewolf," Remus continued, a little surprise entering his voice and Harry supposed his former teacher had expected him to interrupt at some point. In fact, Harry was compelled to hear him out and he felt his chest grow tighter as Lupin spoke. "How do you break that information to a girl who you've just mustered up the courage to ask to Hogsmeade? Or do you wait until the second date? Or until you kiss for the first time? Or do you just bottle it up inside you forever, hoping they'll never find out, and that you'll never put them in danger because you kept it a secret?"

If Remus Lupin was waiting for an answer from Harry, he would be waiting for a long time. Harry's vocal cords seemed temporarily muted as if under the silencing charm and the tightness in his chest was now replaced with the sensation of a hippogriff sitting on it. "In the end, I couldn't do any of it. There was nobody who I felt I could trust with my secret, other than my fellow Marauders. But Lily, she already knew. She was a smart girl who had quite a few run-ins with us during our various...shenanigans." The barest hint of a smile crossed his lips. "Lily Evans knew what I was, who I was and...it didn't matter to her. She befriended me anyway.

"We were prefects together, you know. I had loads of alone time with her, patrolling the hallways, making our rounds. I could have told her how I felt at any time. Most of the other prefects used their duties as an excuse to go off and snog. I knew Lily would never go for that, but I could have...I could have told her." Remus Lupin smiled warmly and made eye contact with Harry for the first time. "Some Gryffindor I am, eh?"

"She never knew how you felt?" Harry croaked, his voice strained and hollow-sounding.

"Eventually," Lupin confessed with a sigh. "Near the end of sixth year. When it was too late. She was already in love with James." Lupin's eyes studied Harry's features carefully, as if seeing him for the first time. "I didn't mean to burden you with all of this, Harry. It can't be easy for you to hear that someone else other than your father ever loved your mother. Or that someone actually resented their relationship. It's not something I'm proud of." Harry stared at him silently, not quite knowing how to put his feelings into words. "But you wanted to know and I felt you had the right to. I don't expect you to understand..."

The dam burst. Everything Harry had been feeling over these last few moments, these last few months exploded out of him, unbidden. And it came out in a form Harry wouldn't have expected. Laughter. He was now laughing hysterically, trying his best not to fall out of one of Sirius' best armchairs in the process.

Lupin rose from his seated position and withdrew his wand, giving Harry a curiously concerned look. 'He must think Voldemort's possessed me again,' Harry thought. For some reason this made him laugh harder and he fell to the floor, his chest rising and falling so rapidly that it surely looked as though he were having some sort of fit. After a few long moments when Professor Lupin seemingly contemplated using the Floo Network to get help, checking to see if any other Order members were still around to provide back up, and simply trying some sort of spell on Harry himself, Harry put a hand up as though that could stop Lupin from hexing him into next week. "I'm alright, Professor...er, Remus," Harry interjected, his laughter becoming sporadic but his voice still clearly his own. Lupin relaxed slightly but moved to Harry's side, offering him his hand and pulling him up into a seated position once more. "I'm fine. Really."

"May I ask, Harry," Remus Lupin inquired, his voice even but his eyes intensely curious, "what exactly was so amusing?"

"Just an image that popped into my head," Harry answered him, his laughter dying away slowly. "Of me, giving this same talk to some Weasley sprog with bushy red hair in about twenty years." Remus backed away from him instinctively and Harry got that distant look in his eyes that he often did. "Silly thought, I suppose. That I'll live to see my thirties. That Ron and Hermione will automatically get married and have kids just because they started dating. That I'll be as open and honest at your age as you are."

"Oh," Lupin replied, a little stunned. He slowly lowered himself back into his seat, seeming to have a hard time finding the chair. "Oh."

"Yeah," Harry replied, his smile now fading away, too. "I guess...I guess I need to talk about this with somebody."

"You definitely should," Lupin agreed too quickly, with enthusiasm that Harry quickly recognized as forced. "Have you tried, erm..."

Harry was amused by Remus' attempt to foist him off on someone else, although he did not smile. "Who? The Dursleys? Ron and Hermione themselves? Hagrid? Dumbledore?"

Remus nodded quickly. "Hagrid or Dumbledore, yes. Them."

Harry fought back a sigh. "Even if I thought turning to Hagrid for relationship advice was a good idea, he couldn't keep a secret to save his life, especially from Ron and Hermione. And Dumbledore..." His voice trailed off. How to tell Remus exactly what his relationship with Albus Dumbledore was like at the moment? "I'd just as soon not. Actually, this is something I would have loved to talk to Sirius about."

Remus Lupin leaned forward in his chair to look Harry straight in the eye. "Your ability to induce guilt rivals your mother's. Very well, Harry. Although I cannot promise to be unbiased, I am here for you. Any time." He took a deep breath. "So, you fancy Hermione but she's with Ron?" he asked, as if attempting to size up an arithmancy problem.

"Yes," Harry confessed, feeling as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "At least I think so."

Lupin frowned. "You think you fancy Hermione or you think she's with Ron?"

Harry cleared his throat nervously. "I know I'm crazy about Hermione and I know she's with Ron, right now in fact, but I'm just not sure if it's...a romantic...togetherness." The frown on Remus Lupin's face deepened. "She told me this summer that she's been thinking of asking Ron out and then the first opportunity she has to see him all she wants to do is talk to him alone. But of course that was before we almost kissed."

"You almost kissed?" Remus repeated back in a choked voice.

"Well yeah," Harry replied, as if it were no big deal. "But I didn't really realize how I felt then. So when she blamed it on hormones, I just let it go at that. Do you think maybe...it was more? I mean, there probably wouldn't have been a second time if she hadn't felt something, right?"

"A second time?" Remus parroted again. "You mean there was a second time when you almost kissed?"

Harry's eyes found the floor. "Yeah. In my bedroom, just after we found out about Auburn Summer. At least, I think we did." A thin smile spread across his face as he looked back up at Lupin. "Hard to tell with an almost kiss, you know?"

"Listen Harry," Remus Lupin leaned in closer to Harry, resting his elbows on his knees. "I think you should be talking to Hermione about this."

"Look, if you don't want to help with advice about girls, I understand, but I can't exactly go to..." Harry started, but Remus cut him off.

"That is my advice, Harry," the older man insisted. "Have a nice long talk with Hermione. Let her know how you feel. It doesn't sound like she and Ron could have gotten very serious yet." Lupin grinned. "Or at least not to the point of having named all of their bushy red-haired sprogs."

"What if..." Harry started and felt an unfamiliar fear grip him. A paralyzing fear. He was suddenly reminded of Hermione being hit by Dolohov's curse in the Department of Mysteries. "What if she doesn't feel the same way about me?"

Lupin shrugged. "What if she does? Could you really stand it if you didn't take the chance?" Harry's eyes moved from briefly meeting Lupin's to his own intertwined hands. "Harry, I don't want you to think there is any parallel between my situation and yours, because there isn't. If anything, after I found out that Ron and Hermione had been made prefects last year, I thought I might be having this conversation with him before too long." Harry was about to ask him why, but Remus' eyes flitted to a clock on the wall and he turned back to Harry with a sense of urgency in his tone. "You should go back to the Burrow. The Weasleys are probably wondering where you've gotten to and even though Molly loves to worry, it drives everyone else around her crazy." He shoved a small parcel into his hands. "Happy birthday, Harry. Write me. Tell me how things went with Hermione. And I wouldn't put that little conversation off for too long if I were you."

Harry nodded his acceptance but couldn't meet the gaze of his former teacher. Grabbing another handful of Floo powder, he enunciated "the Burrow" very clearly and disappeared. He wanted nothing more than to collapse onto one of the Weasleys' beds ('although not Ginny's', his mind added strangely) and sleep for a good long while, as the exhaustion that filled his body made him feel as though he were moving in slow motion. What he wanted, however, wasn't what he got.

"Surprise!"

Every single Weasley with the exception of Arthur and Percy, plus Hermione, Mad-Eye Moody, Tonks, Dumbledore, Kingsley Shacklebolt and, much to Harry's surprise, Remus Lupin (how had he apparated here so fast?) surrounded him, their faces smiling with joy. It made Harry tired just to look at them. Shooting Fred and George an amused glance as he shook hands with Tonks and Kingsley, Harry wandered over towards Ron and Hermione. "I thought it wasn't a surprise party if I knew where it was going to be and who was going to be there?" Harry asked Hermione pointedly.

She fired off a mischievous grin worthy of the Weasley twins. "You didn't know that everyone was going to be here. And you certainly didn't know we were going to surprise you right after you came back from Grimmauld Place. So it counts as a surprise party." Hermione then gave Ron the look, although it seemed softer than the one she had shot him when they first arrived. 'Is that because they're together?' Harry asked himself glumly, although his brain produced no answer. "Even though Ron did nearly ruin it all."

"Did not!" Ron insisted. "You're the one who was talking about something being surprising. Right confusing, that was. I figured you'd already told Harry what was going on and..." He managed to stop himself, as if aware that what he would say next would cause another row between Hermione and him. "And besides, it didn't ruin anything because Harry didn't have a clue what was really going on. Did you, Harry?"

Harry nodded. Right now he felt like the most clueless person on the Earth. "Come over here, Harry," Molly gushed as she threw one arm around him and began steering him towards the kitchen. "Arthur's bringing in your birthday cake now. Your real cake, not that gag one Fred and George showed you." She gave her sons an accusatory look.

Harry thought he heard either Fred or George mutter "didn't make us gag", but soon Harry forgot all else and became transfixed on a single image, one which would surely be burned on his brain forever, whether he wanted it to be or not. As Arthur Weasley entered the room carrying Harry's cake, a dangling alien-seeming object that had been pushed onto the Weasley patriarch's proboscis caught his attention and it would not let go. Arthur Weasley was wearing the condom the Dursleys had given Harry. On his nose.

"Ah, I see you've noticed my latest fashion accessory, Harry," Mr. Weasley said with beaming pride. "Hermione informs me that this is a muggle rubber nose warmer. Although I must say I don't think it's doing much of a job." His eyes brightened suddenly. "I'll bet it's used for when muggles have the common cold! That's why it's rubber and so much longer than it needs to be. It must be designed to contain excess bodily fluids."

Harry had a very hard time keeping a straight face as he blew out the candles on his birthday cake.

All and all, the party was a hit. Harry opened his gifts from everyone. Standard fare mostly: candy, spellbooks, owl treats for Hedwig. Remus Lupin's present was a quick-quotes quill like the one Rita Skeeter used (along with a note to "use it sparingly in class"), plus a deed to Grimmauld Place with a magical clock counting down til next year, when Harry could legally take possession of it. Until then, it was left in Lupin's stead. Hermione's gift was conspicuously absent, but he knew she would have plenty of chances to give it to him later.

Once they all stopped focusing on him, Harry withdrew from everyone, finding a quiet corner of the Burrow not far from the staircase where he could get lost in his thoughts. He watched Dumbledore do something with his teacup for the amusement of the two Aurors present, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks, when a thought hit him very suddenly. 'Would any of them be here without the prophecy?'

Ah, yes. The prophecy. Harry had done a good job of not thinking about it over the summer, but it was always there, lingering in the back of his mind, threatening to overwhelm him at times when he would rather be thinking about something more pleasant. It would be he who would have to face Voldemort in the end, face him and kill him. He alone. There was no getting out of it. 

Other than, of course, the alternative. His own death at the hands of the Dark Lord. Harry was even less crazy about this possibility.

Harry watched out of the corner of his eye as Hermione sat down next to him, her knees folded together on the floor as her arms wrapped around them. "A rubber nose warmer?" he asked her without looking her in the eye, a smirk crossing his lips.

Hermione blushed. "I suppose I shouldn't expect a 'thank you' for that little bit of covering up, but if I hadn't told him something he would have taken it to work to find out what it was." Harry felt a little guilty at having teased her, but not too much. "What exactly did you think you'd be needing that for, anyway?"

"It wasn't my idea," Harry informed her. "It was the Dursleys; they seem to have a fanatical obsession with us and that." They sat in comfortable silence for a few more moments, Harry staring off into space and Hermione simply examining him, hoping to gain some insight into what he was thinking. Finally, Harry broke the silence with a soft-spoken question. "What did you and Ron talk about?"

Hermione's eyes darted away suddenly, as if now unable to look at Harry at all. "Not much, really," she said in a tone that was too casual to be genuine. "Just silly things. Nothing you'd be interested in."

'Want to bet?' Harry thought bitterly, but refrained from saying it aloud. What he did say surprised even him, just a little. "So you didn't tell him what we've been up to, then? You pretending to be my girlfriend, Auburn Summer, the Serpent's Tooth, the attack on Britannicus Leslie, what happened to my grandparents..."

Hermione looked startled. "No, I..." She put her hand to her mouth. "Oh, Harry," she continued, nervousness evident in her shaky voice, "you must think I'm terrible for keeping this from Ron." Harry suppressed the very strong urge to laugh out loud. If only she knew what he was keeping from Ron, as well as the big thing he hadn't told either of them: the prophecy. But of course there were good reasons for that. "I suppose I thought I could just- oh, I don't know- keep him safe if he didn't know about it. Which is rather stupid, really, now that I think about it." Her eyes widened dramatically and Harry was suddenly very interested in what Hermione was saying. "I'm sure that if anything happened to us and he didn't even know what was going on, he'd be furious and upset and betrayed and...well...you know he would have wanted to help us. He would want to be at our side if our lives were in danger." She bit her lip slightly and turned her worried eyes up to meet Harry's. "D'you think we should tell him?"

Harry stood in silence, her words washing over him. Not for the first time today, he felt overwhelmed. He said the first thing that popped into his head, which probably wasn't a good idea. "So," he said, his voice much softer than he had intended, "does this mean that you didn't ask Ron to be your date to the Youth Masque?"

Hermione shot him a puzzled frown. "Of course not!" She punched him lightly in the arm. "I just said that I didn't tell him anything about what we've been doing! Besides, you know how he would be in a place full of muggles, so completely out of sorts and I thought, well I hoped, you might be my date." Her words were rushed and sounded awkward coming out of her mouth.

Harry was amused by how nervous she was at asking him out. He grinned winningly. "Of course, Hermione. I'd love to." The humour in his eyes then vanished in an instant, replaced by apprehension. "But there's something I need to tell you first."

Hermione sighed. "Harry, I know the only other girl you've gone on a date with is Cho Chang and that it went badly. I've seen you attempt to dance. I know that that knight costume looks hideous on you. What else is there that I could possibly need to know before I go out with you?"

Harry hedged anxiously. "Oh, I don't know, I think there might be something like the fact that there's a prophecy that says that I either have to kill Voldemort or he has to kill me and neither can live while the other survives," Harry blurted out all at once.

Hermione blinked repeatedly and her head moved reflexively back from his own. "Harry, that's...that's..." She was seemingly sifting through her own thoughts, trying to make sense of them. Harry knew the feeling. "Well, I'd like to say that it's surprising, but then Ron would probably just yell 'Surprise!' again." Harry couldn't help it. He started laughing. Hermione joined in, although there was a hint of worry in her own amusement. "Here, Harry," Hermione said as she handed him a wrapped parcel from behind her back. "Open my present. I wanted to wait until we were alone. I thought..." She stopped herself and gave him a small smile. "Just open it."

Harry did so quickly and discovered a series of photographs, each featuring a waving and happy young Sirius Black, some with him standing alongside Harry's father and Lupin, others with just Sirius and some with him and what seemed like a never-ending stream of attractive women. 'I really could have used Sirius' advice on this,' Harry thought a little sadly as he looked up at Hermione. "It's wonderful, Hermione. Thank you."

Their eyes were locked on each other for a fleeting moment, then Hermione looked away, her eyes fixating on the back of her hand. "You won't be alone," she declared softly, as if afraid that someone standing close to them would overhear, even though Harry saw no one around. "It doesn't matter what some prophecy says. When the time comes for you to face him, I'll be there. You won't ever be alone in this, Harry. Not with me here."

Her right hand found his left knee and gave it a gentle squeeze. Both of them were a bit more teary-eyed than they'd prefer to be around each other, but neither of them could look away from the other's gaze. Harry thought back to Lupin's advice and opened his mouth to talk to her about his feelings, but no sound came out. How could he tell her how much she meant to him, after she'd just declared her devotion to him in such a powerful way? Could he even find the words to do it? "Hermione..." Well, he had managed to say her name. That was a start. At least she would know he didn't have her confused with Ron. "I don't know what more I could possibly ask of you, after everything...but I just want you to know that... that there's nobody I'd rather face Voldemort with than you."

"Harry...that's..." Hermione's eyes welled up with tears and she threw herself into his arms. Harry stroked her back gently as she pressed her face close to his. 'Well, so much for talking,' Harry thought. 'This is loads better.' 


	13. Suffragette City

Harry Potter was of two minds about the Sir Lancelot costume he was now wearing to the Youth Masque. On the one hand, it made him appear very manly and offered a lot of protection to the areas of the body that would be most vulnerable to attack. Plus, it sported a wicked looking sword. It might have been fake, but it seemed impressive nonetheless. Then there was that bit about it possessing some sort of protective magical qualities that Hermione had explained to him three times now but which he still didn't quite understand. Maybe it was the fact that he couldn't stop staring at her lips when she spoke... 

Of course there was always the second opinion he held of his armoured outfit, which was currently holding sway over his thoughts. 'This thing is hot. And heavy. And absolutely exhausting to wear. Why couldn't I have gone as someone who only wears a loincloth, like Tarzan or someone like that? And how did anyone ever fight anyone else wearing one of these things? Dueling in robes is hard enough.' Then there was the fact that he kept trying to hold Hermione's hand only to be met by sharply whispered protests that usually went something like "Harry, those are my fingers you're crushing!"

The metallic monstrosity did give him the perfect excuse not to dance, however, which was definitely a good thing. But the only alternative to dancing seemed to be standing with his back against the wall and thinking about 'things'. These things included, but were not limited to, Auburn Summer, Hermione, how to ask Terry Nichten-Teach about his father's visits to Harry as a baby, the identity of that guy Hermione was talking to and what his intentions were, how he was going to tell Ron about the prophecy, how he was going to tell Ron that he told Hermione about the prophecy before he had told him, and for pity's sake, who was that tall bloke Hermione was dancing with?

The great debate raging in Harry's mind at the moment was whether or not he and Hermione going to the Youth Masque together counted as a real date. This one had been going on for two days now, ever since his return from the Burrow after his quasi-surprise birthday party. 'If she had asked Ron, I would have thought of that as a date. But instead she asked me. So this must be a date.' It all sounded logical, yet Harry couldn't help but think back to Hermione's remark when they were saving the Philosopher's Stone about some wizards not having an ounce of logic and wonder idly if he might be one of them. 'Of course Ron hasn't been pretending to be Hermione's boyfriend this summer, like I have,' his brain added rebelliously.

Some small voice in the back of his mind (not the one that sounded like Hermione's, thankfully) told him that this most likely was not a real date, although it could have been had he not been such a thick git as to not tell Hermione how he felt about her back at the Burrow. That was assuming that Hermione even felt the same way. One thing was clear, however. Harry wanted it to be a real date. Also, he wanted to have a word with that gangly brown-haired bloke who was getting way too flirtatious with Hermione. Real date or not, the guy had gotten under his skin.

Before he crossed the dance floor to make the acquaintance of Hermione's dancing partner, Harry was stopped by Terry Nichten-Teach. With some amusement, Harry noted that the young club owner had donned a set of wizard's robes that were light blue with golden stars dotting them, the exact same 'wizard's outfit' that he had considered wearing. In his right hand was a ridiculously oversized wand with a large yellow star at the end which, from time to time, sparkled incandescently for no reason Harry could see. "Great party," he exclaimed over the loud music that filled the Serpent's Tooth. "Tell Hermione she did a wonderful job. I think my father would have been proud."

Harry nodded and caught Terry's arm with his metallic glove before he could move on to talk to someone else. "About your father," he started, swallowing a lump in his throat, "did he say anything about...visiting me, as a child?"

Terry shook his head a little sadly. "No, I'm sorry. We weren't that close. We didn't talk about things like that."

"Oh." Harry's hand fell away from Terry Nichten-Teach's shoulder and the young man went to talk to someone else, a girl who was decidedly not Violet Mogle. He hoped Terry's girlfriend wasn't the jealous type.

Harry eyed the guy who was currently laughing at something Hermione had said with suspicion burning in his eyes. Willing his metal-encased legs to move across the room to the dance floor intending to make some sort of a scene, Harry was embarrassed to only make it halfway there before Hermione caught sight of him and moved to meet him. "Harry!" she called, a pleased look suddenly overtaking her features. "Having a good time?"

"Not as good a time as you're having," Harry retorted, nodding towards Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome who Harry now started to suspect was really a Death Eater in disguise. He had meant his words to sound openly hostile, but he couldn't keep the smile from his face that seemed to naturally form now whenever Hermione was around. Harry had never before longed for Severus Snape's ability to hide his emotions and found himself hoping that whatever happened between him and his best friend, this little situation would end soon.

"What?" Hermione looked confused and...playful? "Are you referring to my dancing with Kenneth?"

"Yes," Harry hissed. He had almost made his smile disappear, as if he had only partially completed a transfiguration assignment. 'Kenneth. What kind of name is that?' he thought. 'The perfect name for a gigantic git who's up to no good, that's what,' came a Ron-like voice from Harry's brain. Harry found himself wondering if perhaps Hermione had a thing for tall guys. Maybe she wouldn't notice if he started wearing platform shoes.

"Harry," she said with an amused and slightly embarrassed smile, "Kenneth's the janitor here. He's twice my age and he has terrible personal hygiene. You have nothing to worry about." Hermione gave him an indulgent laugh. "Honestly, Harry, you act like I'm prostituting myself out on the dance floor." She scratched her chin thoughtfully. "Although I did get some rather, erm, interesting proposals from some people when I told them I was a suffragette."

Harry was rendered speechless temporarily. Now that he got a good look at 'Kenneth', he did feel a bit ridiculous. He could have sworn that that was a moustache above his upper lip. "Right, well. Good. So he's not a Death Eater, then?" Hermione shook her head patiently. "Excellent. We can mark him off of our list of suspects."

"Are you certain we're looking for a Death Eater?" Hermione whispered into his ear as she steered them over to a secluded corner of the club and Harry felt a sense of relief that she was changing the subject, even though it was to a much more morbid one. "The magic behind this Auburn Summer ritual has only ever been used by muggles or squibs before, and usually desperate ones. Death Eaters rarely come from the ranks of anyone of 'lesser' status than half-blood." Her pronunciation of the word 'lesser' indicated her contempt for the importance of wizarding bloodlines.

"I'm sure there are plenty of pureblood squibs out there," Harry opined, "who would love to get into Voldemort's bad graces by doing something like this. We know he has to be involved because of the attack on Britannicus Leslie that I saw in my dream, but I guess we wouldn't necessarily be looking for one of his Death Eaters. Maybe a Death Eater wannabe?" Hermione screwed up her nose at that last word. "It's an American expression. I learned it from Violet. It means..."

"I know what it means," Hermione interrupted impatiently. "I suppose you're right. But if we're looking for either a Death Eater, or a prospective Death Eater, or maybe just a muggle obsessed with magic..."

"It could be anyone," Harry finished for her gloomily. "Anyone here might be the killer we're looking for." Harry thought anxiously back to Hermione's revelation of what Auburn Summer entailed: four people being bled to death so that their blood could be used in a ritual meant to ennervate the veins of some murderous muggle or squib with magical power. Hermione was also fairly certain that the snake that tried to kill Violet Mogle on their first 'date' had something to do with the ceremony of Auburn Summer as well.

"We can't think like that," Hermione insisted, shaking her head free of what were likely similar thoughts to the ones Harry was just having. "There has to be someone who's more likely than anyone else to be behind this. It should be obvious."

"Atlas Filch," Harry said insistently, as if Hermione had been the one overlooking something for a change. "He's the only suspect from last time around who's still alive, he was hanging around whenever Violet was attacked by that snake and he's just generally suspicious-looking. He's been skulking around the doorway ever since we arrived, glaring at us."

"Atlas Filch is a wizard, Harry," Hermione pointed out doubtfully. "Why would he need to kill muggles to get magical powers? He has them already."

Harry looked at her incredulously. Was she really not seeing what he saw? "Because his brother's a squib! Remember that whole Kwik Spell incident with Argus Filch from second year? Atlas must be doing this for him."

Hermione shook her head. "No. I don't think he would go to all of this trouble just to help his brother. Argus has a good position in the wizarding world for a squib. I don't think either of them would risk him losing his job at Hogwarts."

Harry felt like letting out a roar of frustration. "Fine. Let's say it wasn't Atlas Filch. Who was it, then?"

Hermione seemed to steel herself, preparing for Harry's disbelief. "You want to know what I think? I think the person who's starting Auburn Summer again is Violet Mogle."

"Violet!" Harry nearly choked. "But how? Hermione, she wasn't even alive..."

Hermione interrupted him forcefully. "Obviously I don't think that she was the culprit back when your parents were involved in all of this, but that easily could have been Frank Nichten-Teach. It was his fingerprint found at the scene of the crime."

"That might have been planted," Harry responded dismissively, although he seemed unsure of himself somehow as he spoke.

"Maybe," Hermione agreed, starting to soften a bit more herself. "But why plant just one fingerprint? Besides, wizards don't usually think about what kind of evidence muggles will look for." Harry let out a quiet sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. "Harry," Hermione began in that soft, supportive tone she had mastered over the years, "I know you want more than to just stop this from happening again. I know that you want to find the person who murdered your grandparents, find them and make them pay for their crime. I don't blame you. I just want to think this through, rationally. Consider everything before we do something rash." Her eyes searched his hopefully. "Including the possibility that the person who killed the Evans' might already be dead."

Harry felt the fire that was burning in his heart cool somewhat and his brain seemed to turn itself back on. Hermione was right, of course. Just like she had been when he had charged off to the Department of Mysteries. Just like she always seemed to be. "Why do you think it's Violet then?" Harry asked, an inquisitive tone quickly replacing his accusatory one.

Hermione stared at him for a moment, as if she were studying him for an exam. "Remember when we came here, when we sort of, er," her voice dropped, "broke in? We ran into Violet and were afraid we were going to get caught, but then she looked even guiltier than we did. She was up to something, I know it." Harry didn't look convinced, but he hadn't interrupted her. "And that incident at the lake when that snake looked like it was attacking her? It perfectly matches the description of a purification ritual associated with Auburn Summer, one where the wannabe wizard or witch prepare themselves to receive magic powers."

Despite the gravity of her words, Harry smiled at her. "So now you're using 'wannabe', too?"

Hermione returned his grin. "Only where Violet is concerned."

Harry wanted to stir restlessly, but the chain mail surrounding him had him pinned down, unable to move freely. "I still think Atlas Filch is involved." Hermione started to protest, but the look in his eyes made her stop herself. "But I'm not against keeping an eye on Violet, too. Good thing there's two of us, eh?"

Hermione's smile vanished. "Er, maybe we should have taken Ron after all."

A sudden jolt ran through Harry's body. "What?"

Hermione weaved her fingers together nervously. "Well, there is another person we should consider. Terry Nichten-Teach." At Harry's frown, her tone turned conciliatory. "He's not my number one suspect either, but his father's connection to this whole thing is a little dubious, he's had access to all of the records we have if not more, and he was hanging around the lake when you 'saved' Violet, just like Atlas Filch was. We can't rule him out."

"You could say the same about Lloyd Moseby and that girlfriend of his," Harry noted with a defeated tone.

Hermione gave out an amused sniff. "You're assuming she's his girlfriend just because they hang out together all of the time? I would have thought those Rita Skeeter articles that came out in fourth year would have broken you of that."

"Sorry," Harry apologized in a low voice, heat rising in his cheeks. "His friend that's a girl, then. We should probably watch all of them. See if any of them look like they're doing something suspicious."

There was a crash at the other end of the dance floor and all eyes in the Serpent's Tooth turned to watch Violet Mogle confronting Terry Nichten-Teach, who had his arm entwined with that of another girl's. Apparently she was the jealous type. "How could you!" she screamed, her high-pitched voice reverberating across the club. "I trusted you!"

"This is kind of suspicious," Harry noted as one eyebrow shot up in surprise.

Hermione's eyes examined the spectacle closely and then turned around to meet Harry's. "Isn't it, though?" As Terry sputtered excuses that didn't seem to pacify the hysterical Violet, Hermione moved next to Harry's ear. "This could be a diversion. We need to see what the other suspects are doing." She made a small summoning gesture with her hands. "Quick, Harry. Give me your invisibility cloak."

It took Harry a moment to realize that he had indeed brought his father's old cloak with him to the club this time, in case any covert activity was needed. He had briefly suggested wearing the invisibility cloak as his costume to the Youth Masque (he was fairly certain he would win first prize) but the scowl Hermione sent him made him think twice about it. As he removed the magical object from his knapsack, Harry remembered that when he had packed it he had been filled with thoughts of himself and Hermione sneaking around at night covered in the cloak, romantically hunched close together, searching for clues so that Harry could best the dastardly villain behind Auburn Summer. He hadn't quite thought through the part where the clanking of his all-metal outfit would render the cloak difficult to use at best and completely pointless at worst.

Harry found himself hesitating a moment as he went to hand the invisibility cloak to Hermione. He had never relinquished it to anyone else before. Sure, Ron and Hermione had been under it with him on some of their earlier adventures, but he had always been there, holding the cloak over them. Harry knew it was silly, but the invisibility cloak always felt like it was magic unique to him, like his ability to speak parseltongue or to conjure a stag patronus. "Harry, you know you can't come with me," Hermione asserted with a pointed glance at his armour. "We won't find out what Atlas Filch and the others are doing unless you give me the cloak. You're just going to have to trust me with it."

When she put it like that, Harry felt extremely foolish. He quickly handed over the cape to Hermione and watched as she ducked behind him and put it on. "You keep watching Violet and Terry," Hermione's voice came from nowhere in a whisper. Harry couldn't really tell when Hermione left, but he somehow sensed that she did, leaving him alone to watch with morbid fascination as whatever relationship there was between Terry Nichten-Teach and Violet Mogle crumbled before the eyes of dozens of teenagers.

Terry offered one last heated rejoinder and Harry was too far away to hear what he said, but Violet slapped him for his troubles. She then stormed off, leaving Harry conflicted. Should he follow Violet, who was walking away at a very brisk pace that Harry could hardly hope to match, or stay here where Terry was? The latter would be much more easily accomplished, but Violet was Hermione's number one suspect. How could Harry let her get away when his best friend was under his invisiblity cloak, watching the person who he suspected was behind it all?

Harry started moving in the direction that Violet seemed to be headed in, but soon found that moving through a crowded room with plates of armour strapped to your legs while trying to track a short, petite blonde wearing a genie outfit was just about as hard as it sounded. In frustration, he stopped to remove the plates of armour that weren't attached to the chain mail, not particularly caring where they ended up. As he looked up from this tedious chore, Harry realized that he had lost sight of Violet. Cursing himself silently, he barely noticed when he bumped into someone that wasn't there.

"Hermione!" he exclaimed at the same time she cried out, "Harry!" Hermione then continued sheepishly as she removed the cloak, "I'm sorry. I didn't see you there."

Harry felt a little embarrassed, too, but didn't really know why. "I didn't see you either, obviously." The look on her face (now that he could actually see it) was serious and he knew she had something important to say.

"Harry," she said forcefully, her breath short and her chest heaving. "It's Atlas Filch and that Pinnix woman, Moseby's friend. You were right, I think he's involved somehow and Harry, they're...they're going to take something from Frank Nichten-Teach's grave."


	14. Expectations

"Ready for your first driving lesson, Harry?" Hermione had asked him as the two of them approached the mint green moped they had been using for transportation throughout the summer. When Harry looked at her curiously, she indicated his chestplate and the remaining bits of armour on his legs with a wave of her hand. "You're going to be too heavy to ride behind me, so you'll have to drive." 

As Hermione turned the key in the ignition, Harry just stood there, staring at the vehicle as if it might suddenly disappear, or at least helpfully transfigure itself into a broomstick. "Come on. We'll lose them if we wait much longer."

They had watched mere moments ago as Atlas Filch managed to squeeze himself into Elmira Pinnix's compact car and the two of them drove away, presumably to commit nefarious deeds in a graveyard. Harry knew that he needed to follow them; to find out what they were doing and stop them. Still, given the Dursleys' near fanatical obsession with not letting Harry do anything that might be even remotely enjoyable, he had no experience as a motorist. He really didn't want his first driving lesson to be at night in a place that was unfamiliar to him, especially when they needed to be somewhere fast.

Still, Gryffindor bravery and all. Harry mounted the moped and felt Hermione's arms go around his waist. He tried desperately not to blush. "Don't worry, Harry," she assured him. "I'll show you what to do. Just drive."

Given the circumstances, Harry's first driving experience went pretty smoothly. There were some curbs hit a little too hard, one or two pedestrians who might end up with serious heart problems from how close they came to being hit and an incident with the Knight Bus that neither Harry nor Hermione would ever speak of again, but eventually they arrived at their destination: Oak Lawn Cemetary. "Frank Nichten-Teach was buried here less than a year ago," Hermione explained. "According to his obituary he was entombed, so we won't be looking through headstones."

Harry looked at Hermione quizzically. "If you knew where he was buried, why did we have to follow Filch so closely?"

Hermione returned his gaze with an incredulous one of her own. "I didn't know _how_ to get here. I'm not a walking font of information, you know." She stole a quick glance at the front gate of Oak Lawn. It would look to anyone else as though it had been pried open, although Harry could tell magic had been used. Hermione removed the green helmet from over her bushy head of hair and then looked expectantly at Harry. Wishing for a moment that he could take his helmet off, too (although it unfortunately was attached to the rest of his armour), he removed the invisibility cloak from his knapsack once more, this time throwing it over the both of them. Ducking slightly so that the difference in their heights wasn't a problem, Harry led the way through the unlocked gate and into Oak Lawn Cemetary.

Remembering his fantasy of walking with Hermione under the invisibility cloak at night while searching for bad guys, Harry decided that this would only be romantic in his imagination. In real life it was awkward and uncomfortable. Of course, the fact that this was one of the hottest nights of the summer and the suit of armour that seemed to raise his body temperature twenty degrees didn't help matters much. It was also very dark, almost too dark to see. Why hadn't they brought a lantern, or at least a flashlight? Harry repeatedy stumbled over his own feet and a few times he knew he stepped on Hermione's toes, although she said nothing about it. In fact, she said nothing at all until they had meandered halfway through the graveyard.

"There it is," Hermione declared in a hushed voice, her finger pointing at a nearby tomb through the invisibility cloak. The name 'Nichten-Teach' was engraved above the entrance, leaving little doubt that this was the place. A pale light emanated from it, indicating that someone was inside. Harry steeled himself mentally. If Atlas Filch was any kind of a dark wizard, Death Eater or no, they could be in for a fight.

Harry and Hermione shared a knowing look before proceeding. With danger so clearly in front of them, it became slightly easier to ignore his attraction to Hermione, even as he remained painfully close to her underneath the invisibility cloak. But he still felt a strong sense of pride in her abilities as a witch and a feeling of appreciation that she was here with him, in the face of what could be mortal danger, nearly overwhelmed him. Harry would trust her to face this threat with him, face it and more than hold her own. He stole one last fleeting glance at Hermione, her wand drawn as his was, ready for battle. Whatever was in there, Harry was sure that the two of them could handle it.

Which was why it came as such a great surprise when they hit an invisible barrier and were knocked forcibly to the ground. As his body hit the earth below him with a metallic clang, everything went dark. For a moment, Harry wondered if he had been knocked unconscious, but the fact that he was actually thinking about whether he was conscious or not kind of disproved it. After a moment, he realized what was wrong. "Harry," Hermione whispered in a voice that conveyed massive amounts of worry, "your visor's stuck again."

Both of their fingers fumbled together, attempting to dislodge the visor from the helmet. "There must be wards around this tomb, keeping certain unwanted visitors out," Hermione explained as she pushed the piece of metallic headgear with all of her might. "I've read about some of them," she grunted, "but they're usually very tricky to break when they've been set up to only let specific people in. I don't think I can undo what..." And suddenly, with a mighty heave, the visor flew to the top of his helmet, allowing him to see again.

And what he saw was pretty amazing. Hermione had lost the hat in her ensemble at some point and all you could see now was just her ordinarily bushy hair pulled back in a clip. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat and her face was dangerously close to his. Brown eyes stared down at him as if he might suddenly vanish and as though she desperately didn't want him to. Her hands remained gingerly placed on his helmet, almost protectively. She leaned down and he sat up slightly at the same time, making their noses touch. "Harry..." she breathed somewhat hesitantly, but he wasn't going to let this be another 'almost kiss'. He put his hands around her head and pulled her closer, their lips finding each other at long last.

To Harry's great relief, she didn't immediately pull away in disgust. The only coherent thought that ran through his brain as they kissed was that he had been right. She did feel something for him, something beyond friendship. Even if it was just attraction, maybe it was something he could work with, something that they could build on. Because he really wasn't sure that he could give _this_ up and become just friends again. It would kill him before Voldemort ever got the chance to.

Eventually the two of them broke apart, their eyes searching each other for something, some almost imperceptible clue about what this meant, how it would change things, how the other felt. Harry wasn't sure if he found anything, but he wouldn't have traded that moment for the world. "Harry," Hermione said again, this time in an almost reverent whisper.

"What?" he answered her hoarsely. Harry was leaning forward slightly, his elbows slipping a little against the invisibility cloak that still covered them both. They were close enough to start kissing again, if that was what she wanted.

Hermione looked past Harry and then met his eyes again, giving him a look that he couldn't read. "We're surrounded by dementors."

Forgetting all about the invisibility cloak as he sprang to his feet, Harry held his wand out and looked around him frantically only to discover what he already knew: Hermione was telling the truth. The former Azkaban guards hovered around them, their spectre-like forms made all the more ominous by the enfolding darkness of the cemetary. They swooped closer as they got a good look at Harry, seemingly drawn in by his presence. Moving between the nearest group of dementors and Hermione, Harry pointed his wand at half a dozen of them, his mind buzzing with so many pleasant memories and thoughts that he was sure he could take out every one here plus a hundred more. "Expecto patronum!" he bellowed, visualizing Prongs in his mind as he willed his patronus to strike each dementor in turn.

Harry's wand sputtered with a small silvery glow and then let out a puff of smoke. Once it cleared away, Harry realized to his horror that his wand had transformed itself into a rubber chicken. Thinking he had done something terribly wrong for only the briefest of moments, he examined the wand, er, chicken closely, finding a note tied around its neck.

"Harry- If you're reading this, you've been doing magic away from school again. Naughty, naughty. You know our dear departed Professor Umbridge wouldn't approve. Which is all the more reason to do it, really. But seriously, Mum made us promise we'd talk to you about being more careful and remembering the prohibition of underage magic statute this summer, but we thought this would be more fun. Love and feathers, Fred and George. P.S. Ron will give you your real wand back on the train to Hogwarts, honest."

Well, that was it then. He would die here, in this graveyard, because Fred and George Weasley had replaced his wand with one of the gag gifts from their shop. He was starting to regret giving them the galleons to start Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes as much as he already regretted going to the Burrow on his birthday. Maybe they could carve "Thanks a bunch, Fred and George," as an epitaph on his tombstone. At least they wouldn't have to go very far to bury him...

Stuffing the rubber chicken in his pocket for a reason he didn't really know, Harry tried to size up the situation as best he could. Although things looked bleak, there had to be a way out of this. Shooting panicked glances in every direction, Harry realized that there could be no escape. Hermione hadn't been exaggerating before, they were surrounded. Wait a minute, Hermione! She had a wand! Maybe he could use hers to conjure a patronus. He wasn't sure if that would work exactly, given the personal nature of both wands and patroni, but Hermione certainly didn't seem to be using it for anything; she was just standing there muttering something about "expecto patronum".

Harry nearly smacked his forehead in frustration, but then decided that that part of his body had gone through enough pain for one year. Hermione could do the patronus charm; in fact she was the only one in the D.A. who had been able to conjure a corporeal patronus. Why hadn't he thought of this before? As Hermione repeated the words "expecto patronum," her voice low and her tone defeated, only wisps of silvery white mist emerged from her wand. Harry wondered what was wrong, but then remembered that this was her first time conjuring a patronus away from Hogwarts. It was much easier to do under controlled circumstances than when actually facing a dementor, much less a swarm of them, as he had found out in third year.

Harry took her free hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "You can do this, Hermione," he told her, their eyes locking on each other as he spoke. "Just think of something happy, a really powerful memory or thought. Can you do that?" Hermione nodded quickly and turned back to face a dementor just as it flew by them, its face lingering near Harry's.

Before Harry knew it, he was down on his knees, the memory of his mother's cry as she begged Voldemort for her infant son's life once again fresh in his mind. His fingers were still intertwined with Hermione's however and when he looked up he noticed she was watching him, concern etched on her face. "Don't worry about me! Just conjure the patronus, Hermione. Now!"

Hermione turned herself around and faced a row of dementors with a look of fierce determination in her eye. "Expecto patronum!" she yelled and a glowing otter took shape in front of her, flinging itself towards the soul-sucking fiends with a happy, playful expression in its eyes. Within minutes, it had driven them all off, leaving Harry and Hermione alone in the graveyard. Harry rose to his feet slowly, Hermione offering him a hand up only a moment too late. As he stood shakily, her ragged breathing filled his ears as his senses seemed to be on overload.

Wandless and dazed, Harry took a look at an exhausted Hermione with a grim expression on his face. He knew he shouldn't want to kiss her again at this moment, but he did anyway. Harry repressed his instincts with difficulty. "What now?"

"We have to find a way to get around the wards," Hermione opined, although she did not offer any immediate suggestions as to how they would do this.

Harry took a brief moment to realize that their conventional roles were now reversed, as Hermione was now the one who would be able to fight 'the fight' while he could only offer helpful suggestions from the sidelines. "They have to know we're out here by now. That dementor attack wasn't an unhappy coincidence. If they keep ignoring us, they must not think us much of a threat to whatever it is they're doing."

Hermione nodded quickly. "Either that or they expected the dementors to finish us off." She chewed her bottom lip fiercely. The fact that dementors had shown up made Voldemort's involvement in 'Auburn Summer' more than just an idea, but cold, hard reality. Neither of them knew what kind of threat they might be facing next. "They nearly did, too. Maybe...maybe we're in over our heads, Harry. This seems more like a job for a team of Aurors than two Hogwarts students not even old enough to apparate."

Harry frowned. "How would we get them here? I didn't exactly bring Hedwig along." His eyes searched the cemetary, as if looking for dementors again. "Knowing Dumbledore, I'm probably being followed by Order members right now. If we get into too much trouble, I'm sure they'll..." But his words trailed off as he heard a cry of pain from inside the tomb. "Crucio!" a distinctly female voice shrieked. The low moan of agony that followed was eerily haunting and Harry couldn't stop a shiver from running up his spine as it continued for a very long moment.

Hermione stretched her hand out to touch the invisible barrier again only to have it pass through effortlessly. "Come on," she called to Harry. He hesitated for a moment, thinking what a good idea getting Aurors involved seemed all of a sudden before he felt compelled to follow Hermione into the tomb.

The faint light that had been emanating from the mausoleum since their arrival was now gone and the interior was plunged into darkness. Harry felt naked without his wand, but Hermione muttered a quick "lumos" and soon it was bright enough to see. What they saw was the large frame of Atlas Filch on the ground, groaning in pain. "Potter," he growled, his right arm extending weakly as his hand shook violently while pointing to an object across the room. "Have to get to..."

Harry moved between Filch and an ornately designed vase that had seemingly captured his attention. "You won't be getting anything," Harry declared with much more certainty than he actually felt.

Hermione had her wand pointed threateningly at Atlas Filch, but her features betrayed a softness which Harry suspected meant she still didn't believe him guilty. "Tell us what you were doing here."

"Pinnix," he croaked, his breathing belabored and his normally stony face contorted into a grimace of pain. "Had me under the Imperius Curse...been under it for nearly a month now...had to use me to get past the wards in the tomb...kept sending you messages, hoped you'd figure it out..."

"We don't believe you," Harry insisted angrily. "You're behind Auburn Summer, you're the one who killed my grandparents! It had to be you!"

Atlas Filch started to laugh weakly, but he ended up coughing violently. "I'm not an innocent man, Potter, but I haven't killed anyone...not yet anyway..."

"Elmira Pinnix," Hermione interrupted impatiently. "What did she take from here? Who wants it? Where did she go?"

"Lot of questions there," Atlas Filch replied with a bitter smile.

"And you're going to answer them," Harry growled.

"A set of runes Frank Nichten-Teach was buried with," he answered mechanically. "Death Eaters and...someone I can't name. Pinnix apparated back to the Serpent's Tooth."

Harry and Hermione shared a look of disbelief. A thoughtful expression then emerged on Hermione's face. "Veritaserum," she declared with mild astonishment. "What do you think of Harry?" Hermione asked before Harry could stop her.

"He's a meddlesome brat who doesn't know how lucky he's been so far," Atlas Filch replied in the same tone as before. "He needs a haircut, but otherwise is somewhat handsome. Also, that knight outfit looks hideous."

Hermione turned to Harry with an expression on her face that said 'See?'. "If someone used veritaserum and the Imperius curse on him, they wanted a secret out of him. Badly." She turned to face Atlas Filch again. "My guess is they didn't get it."

"You'd be right," Atlas rasped. He had been laying on his side as he spoke, his full head of curly hair slipping off his head slightly (Harry guessed it was a wig) but now with a groan of pain he flopped onto his back.

"We have to get back to the Serpent's Tooth, Harry," Hermione said with a sense of urgency in her voice.

"Vase is a portkey," Atlas Filch informed them, his voice quieter now. "It'll take you straight there. You haven't time to lose."

"No way," Harry exclaimed, seemingly finding his voice for the first time in ages. "We've got the moped, we'll take it back to the Serpent's Tooth."

Hermione's eyes seemed to fixate on Frank Nichten-Teach's sarcophagus, as if she were discovering something important. Harry saw nothing of interest, however, just his birth and death date and a bit of old poetry. "He's right, Harry. We have to get there now." Harry looked ready to argue until he saw the look of determination in her eyes. "Get your invisibility cloak from outside. We might need it."

Harry felt obliging and trudged outside into the dark to look for his invisibility cloak. Luckily, it was visible when not in use and Harry retrieved it from the ground with ease. Returning to the tomb, he saw that Hermione was standing over the vase. "Ready?" she asked.

"Remember one thing," Atlas Filch said from behind them, startling them both just a little. "Frank Nichten-Teach was a good man. You mustn't blame him for any of this. Hate me if you must, but...don't blame him. He was a good man."

Neither Harry nor Hermione seemed to know what to make of his remarks as they both grabbed onto the portkey. Harry felt the familiar tug at his navel and the two of them disappeared. The first thing they saw on the other side was Lloyd Moseby, his wand pointed menacingly at Violet Mogle's throat.


	15. Save yourself

Lloyd Moseby wore a wide grin that seemed out of place when paired with the look of sheer dread that filled Violet Mogle's face. His circus master outfit added to the air of dementia that surrounded him. One of his gloved hands grasped her hair tightly, holding her head up at what looked like a very painful angle while the other kept his wand steadily trained on her. "I suppose it would be redundant to point out that if you don't do what I want I'll kill her," he sneered. "Hand over the portkey." 

If Harry Potter had learned one thing from just over a year of facing Death Eaters, it was that giving them what they wanted generally wasn't a good idea. "What do you want this old thing for?" Harry asked, as if he were contemplating chucking it in the rubbish bin. Neither he nor Hermione had released their grasp on the vase which had transported them to the Serpent's Tooth from Frank Nichten-Teach's tomb.

Moseby gritted his teeth. "I do not need to explain myself to you and I am not Lucius Malfoy. Any more stalling and our Miss Mogle's on the business end of a Killing Curse."

"Give us a little bit of credit," Hermione retorted, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I've seen 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'. You get what you want and the 'girl' turns out to be on your side." Lloyd Moseby watched her with disgust as she took the vase from Harry's hand and extended it towards him. "Still, if you want it that badly...catch it!"

The young Death Eater snorted contemptuously as Hermione tossed the antique vase into the air. "Accio va..." he started, but then Violet Mogle stomped on his foot, causing him to howl in pain. As Lloyd Moseby released his grip on his wand, Harry quickly used a summoning charm of his own and watched with a smile as it entered his hand.

"Reducto!" Hermione cried, pointing her wand at the porkey as it fell to the floor. Her spell bounced off harmlessly and the vase hit the floor without apparent damage. Lloyd Moseby inched his way towards it, hoping to get his hands on it before Harry or Hermione could.

Harry pointed Moseby's own wand at him but then suddenly felt a tingling sensation run up his arm, which was now starting to shake violently. 'Must be some sort of protection charm, so that it can't be used against its owner,' Harry guessed. He hesitated for only a moment, until he saw Moseby reach for something inside his jacket pocket. As he withdrew it, Harry shouted "Expelliarmus!"

Harry realized that this was the wrong move almost immediately as the wand sent him sprawling backwards at the same time as it knocked the object from Lloyd Moseby's hand. However, it looked like he had already been intending to throw whatever it was, so knocking it out of his hand wasn't exactly a victory. Trying to shake his wand hand of the burning sensation it now had coursing through it, Harry rose to his feet just in time to see Hermione fall to the ground. "Hermione!"

Harry could hear his heart beating in his ears and his mind cleared itself of all rational thought. "Hermione, no, please no..." This couldn't be happening now, not now, not before he got a chance to tell her how he felt...not when he didn't know how she felt about him...

Somehow willing himself to display more common sense than he had in the Department of Mysteries, he checked her wrist for a pulse. Much to Harry's relief, again it was there, although this time it was weakening. He pulled away from her for a moment and took a long look at her face. She seemed very still and the colour was draining slowly from her cheeks. It was then that Harry noticed her lips were wet. This was very odd as Hermione never wore lipstick and they hadn't had time for refreshments before they had to leave the Youth Masque. 'Also, I distinctly remember that her mouth was dry when we kissed,' Harry noted to himself.

"It was a potion," a feminine voice said from behind him. Harry's head turned quickly in the direction of a sheepish looking Violet Mogle. He had forgotten that anyone was there with him and he noticed with anger that Lloyd Moseby had taken the opportunity of this distraction to escape. "He threw a potion at her. The bottle exploded or disappeared or something as soon as it got close to her mouth." Harry watched her warily. "I think it's called the Amormortis Potion." She enunciated the last two words slowly, as if stressing their importance.

Harry's eyes narrowed. "What do you know about potions?" When she didn't answer, his tone became desperate, angry. "How do you know about this one?"

Violet's gaze darted from the floor to Harry rapidly. "I only know what I overheard Lloyd and Elmira telling Terry."

Anyone listening to them would think the two teenagers were discussing idle gossip rather than conspiracy to commit murder. "Terry?" Harry questioned with a frown. "So he's in on this, too?"

The blonde nodded quickly. "I...I know I should have told you. I just didn't know who I could trust. Not after..." Violet appeared to be holding back tears, and rather poorly at that.

"It's alright," Harry assured her hesitantly, not really meaning a word of it. "Just tell me what you know about this potion. Please, Violet. I have to... I have to bring her back." 'I can't do this without her,' his mind added.

"They were joking about it, you know," she said through a sob. "Like it was all a game. They were planning someone's murder and it was..."

Harry swallowed with difficulty. "This potion...it could kill her?" Violet nodded. Harry's heart sank to somewhere below his stomach. "Did they say how to stop it? How to reverse the effects?" Tears streamed down Violet's face now and Harry felt like yelling at her. Somehow, he managed to remain calm. "Please just tell me..."

"Legomancy," Violet interjected awkwardly. "They said it would take someone skilled in something called..."

"Legilimency?" Harry questioned reflexively. When she shook her head in the affirmative, he felt some of his hope die. He was not a skilled legilimens and he didn't know how to get anyone who was one here quickly enough for it to matter. "How much time do we...does she...?"

"Not much," Violet Mogle answered frankly, her lips trembling a bit.

Harry paced the floor from one end of the room to the other. For the first time he took a look around and found that he was in one of the little offices that dotted the second floor of the Serpent's Tooth. He wondered idly if the door was locked, or if there would be a trap waiting for him if he attempted to leave. 'None of it matters if I don't get Hermione back,' his mind declared defiantly. "I'll have to go get Dumbledore. It'll only take a few minutes, I'm sure there's someone from the Order around, but I'll have to get him, convince him to come here..."

"No!" Violet exclaimed. Harry's eyes darted to hers. "What I mean is, the three of them, they were saying something about...trust. It has to be someone the person under the effects of the potion trusts with their life. Usually it's a lover. It's what the potion Juliet uses in 'Romeo and Juliet' was based on."

That settled it. Harry was reading as much Shakespeare as was humanly possible; that was once Hermione was back here, among the living, to explain it all to him. "Trust," he repeated, his voice numb. Did Hermione Granger trust Albus Dumbledore with her life? Maybe. Could he depend on that when the wrong guess could mean her death? 'No,' Harry thought forcefully. 'I can't let someone else do this. It has to be me.'

Harry let out a long sigh that was a mixture of relief and despair. He really didn't have much confidence in his ability as a legilimens, but he had practiced occlumency and the two subjects were interrelated. He knew Hermione wouldn't like him peering into her mind, but neither he nor she had much choice in the matter. His eyes found Violet Mogle's face and his stomach churned slightly. There was something about her that he just didn't like. But she was the only one who could tell him about the Amormortis Potion. "What do I have to do, once I'm inside of her mind? What will I find?"

"Obstacles," Violet answered slowly. "Barriers her mind has set up to keep everyone else out. Terry, well...he didn't give you much chance of getting past them."

Harry made a mental note to himself to pummel Terry Nichten-Teach the next time he saw him. Harry's shoulders slumped as he watched Hermione's slow steady breathing. "I guess that's it then." Bending down on one knee, Harry's eyes figuratively bore holes in her eyelids. Mentally, he prepared himself for what was to come, trying to remember the time when he had driven Snape out of his brain during an occlumency lesson and had ended up entering the Potions Master's own mind. This was his sole claim to expertise in legilimency. As Harry had little time to lose, he realized that this would have to do. "Legilimens!"

'This must be what apparation feels like,' was the first thought that ran through Harry's mind once the dizziness stopped. Well, subsided at least. He wasn't sure his head would ever stop spinning. Taking a moment to rid himself of his disorientation, Harry got a good look at his 'surroundings', such as they were. A thick mist permeated everything around him, although the surface below him was recognizably smooth, as though he were standing on a paved road. Hermione's brain had also generously provided him with robes to wear and a new pair of sneakers.

'Legilimency isn't like this, normally,' that Hermione-like voice in his brain (Although wasn't it in her brain now, too? That was a riddle too complex to be sorted out right now, he decided.) informed him. 'It's usually more like flipping through the pages of a book at random. The Amormortis Potion must draw the legilimens into the mind somehow.' Whatever the cause of his current state of being, Harry soon remembered the reason he was here: Hermione was dying.

"What do I do now?" Harry asked himself aloud, his eyes searching the fog for any clue of how to proceed. His shoes then began walking forward, almost of their own accord. After a few confusing moments, Harry found himself standing in front of a large steel wall. It towered over him impressively and was covered from top to bottom with large metallic spikes. Stretching his right hand out hesitantly, he discovered to his displeasure that not only were they sharp but also red hot. Harry pulled his hand away quickly and stood back, examining the problem at hand.

'Obstacles,' Harry thought. 'Violet said I'd run into them. This must be the first one.' Taking time that he wasn't sure he had, Harry looked around, searching for an easy way around the wall. Unsurprisingly, there was none. However, there were a pile of objects near him: an umbrella, a package filled with empty balloons, a coiled spring and a tube of superglue. Also, a sword hung at the top of the wall, gleaming at him temptingly. The word 'BRAVERY' was etched on its handle.

Harry sighed. He supposed the key was to do something with the objects that lie all around him. Maybe glue some balloons to the umbrella, jump on the spring and hope to have it carry him over the wall? Would that even work?

Harry kept half-expecting the Hermione voice in his brain to come up with something, some suggestion on how to make this work, but it remained eerily silent, almost as if it grasped the gravity of the situation. Harry sighed. 'This is exactly the sort of thing that Hermione would be good at. If only she were here to help me...'

Then again, Harry thought, this was Hermione's brain. Her mind had only set up the obstacles to keep away people she didn't want in here, right? So maybe she was already helping him somehow. But how? Harry briefly considered the assortment of objects at his feet, but then shook his head clear of that idea. Hermione would know he'd never figure out how to use all of these. There had to be something here that was more important.

Wait. 'More important things'? Where had he heard that before? "Books and cleverness! There are more important things like friendship and bravery..." Bravery! The sword. Whatever it took to get past this, he needed the sword to do it.

There was only one problem with that. The wall of hot spikes was the very thing preventing him from getting the sword. So not a lot of help there.

Harry picked up some of the items, twirling the umbrella briefly over his head and rummaging through the box of balloons. "Cleverness..." he said aloud, although he wasn't entirely sure why. His eyes found the wall again. "And bravery." In the space of that moment, he realized what he had to do.

Wrapping some small amount of his robes around each of his hands, Harry grabbed onto the tallest metallic spikes he could hold and began climbing the wall. The searing heat burned his palms even through the cloth and the sharp metal tips cut into his hands a few times, but Harry never stopped, constantly reminding himself that none of this was physically real. He might wake up with one doozy of a headache later, but he probably would anyway. He was actually doing quite well with compartmentalizing the pain (he suspected his experiences with the Cruciatus curse might have helped) when he slipped slightly and one of the spikes plunged into his side.

The noise Harry made was somewhere between a bellow and a squeal. Instinctively, his hands clutched the top of the wall, pulling himself upward, as he forced himself to ignore the hot stabbing pain near his ribcage. Sitting on top of the barrier in triumph, his right hand reached out and took hold of the sword, its weight as he held it up nearly making him crumple to the ground. Harry managed not to fall, however, and soon felt the wall below him disappear.

The scene around him changed suddenly and Harry looked around to find himself in a room full of flying keys. 'This is just like Madam Hooch's protection for the Philosopher's Stone,' Harry thought, remembering back once again to that fateful day in first year when he had faced Voldemort for the first time. Using the sword to steady himself as he clutched his wound with the other hand, he moved to get a good look at another object which appeared to be blocking his path. It was a large jewel-encrusted shield with the word 'KNOWLEDGE' written across the crest.

Harry put his fingers to the glass encasement surrounding it and read the message attached. "Only the key with the name dearest to her heart shall open it." A large brass padlock hung over the case, preventing him from opening it.

Harry felt hope surge inside of him. Not only did this task seem less physically challenging than the first, but he could find out how Hermione felt about him in the process. This knocking down 'mental barriers' business was a lot easier than actually talking about your feelings with a girl you fancied. Harry's eyes darted around at the hundreds of keys that flitted around him, each bearing a name on it. He briefly thought back to having to chase them on a broom in first year. Now, however... "Accio 'Harry Potter' key!"

A key with his name on it flew into his hand and Harry promptly inserted it into the lock. Which quickly frustrated him by not opening. Harry did his best to avoid swearing, but did toss the key away angrily. 'I knew this might be how she felt,' Harry thought sadly, his heart feeling as though it had suddenly transfigured itself into stone. 'I just thought that kiss might have meant something.' There was only one thing to do now. Bitterly, he called out "Accio 'Ron Weasley' key."

This key seemed to flutter lightly into his hand reluctantly, as if worried that he might destroy it in a fit of anger. It _was_ tempting, but he wasn't about to let Hermione die simply because she didn't fancy him. Inserting the Ron key into the lock, Harry got a puzzled expression on his face when it too did nothing. After attempting a 'Viktor Krum' key to similar results, Harry let out a roar of frustration. "Who else could Hermione possibly fancy? The only guys close to her age she ever talks about are me and Ron and Viktor! She's not like Lavender or Parvati, she doesn't chase boys for sport. In fact, when Ron and I found her in that bathroom on Halloween in first year, we were probably the first boys she'd ever talked to!" This might have been an exaggeration, but it did put a thought in Harry's head. There was something Hermione had said the first day that they were in muggle London...

"Accio 'Ferdinand' key," Harry called out, his voice taking on a sly tone. This key bounced happily along, landing in his hand gracefully. Slipping it into the lock, Harry let a wide grin break out on his face as it turned. 'If the only competition I have is a character in Hermione's favourite Shakespeare play, I think my chances with her are pretty good.' Harry reached in and retrieved the shield, slung it onto the arm on his good side (the one that hadn't just suffered a major stab wound) and made his way down the path once again.

In the distance, he could see Hermione's body lying prone and motionless. The suffragette costume looked unnatural on her now; oddly formal, as if she were being prepared for her own funeral. "Hermione!" he called, running towards her as fast as he could, given his injuries. He didn't dare use the summoning charm on her, as he didn't know what it would do to her in the condition she was in. As he neared Hermione's still form, a familiar voice called out to him, "Took your time getting here, didn't you?"

Harry only needed a moment to realize that the voice belonged to Ron Weasley. "Ron! You're here! Listen, we need to save Hermione, get her out. She's under the effects of the Amormortis Potion so we haven't much time..."

Harry was taken by complete surprise when Ron produced his own sword and landed a glancing blow across Harry's head. Stunned, he fell to the ground. "Got that wrong, mate," he spat, his eyes taking on a menacing glint. "We've got all the time in the world to settle this."


	16. Perspective

"Ron," Harry Potter rasped, his head throbbing and his body on the ground, beaten and exhausted. "How...how did you get here?" he asked weakly.

Ron let out a derisive snort. "Does it matter? I'm here now." He turned to look at Hermione, still lying there lifeless in the suffragette outfit she had chosen to wear to the Youth Masque. "I'm here for her. Just like always. Only this time, I get to charge off and be the brave hero and you get to lay there hurt, wishing like hell you could help somehow, but knowing that you can't. Not this time. Maybe not ever."

"This isn't you," Harry insisted, shaking his head despite the pain it caused him. "Not really. It can't be. You...you're not a legilimens."

A bitter laugh escaped Ron's lips. "Mogle was lying about the Amormortis Potion. She's in on it. They all are. Atlas Filch and some blonde bint managed to make you charge off into harm's way, just like You-Know-Who did at the Department of Mysteries." Ron moved closer to Harry so that he was standing over him, his towering frame seeming all the more impressive. "I've been following you around all night. Tonks and Lupin were tailing you for the Order tonight and they invited me to tag along. Didn't know what I'd find when I agreed, of course. Sure as hell didn't expect you two to be off on a date, sneaking around in a graveyard looking for places to snog."

"It wasn't like that," Harry tried to explain, although his voice nearly died in his throat. Panic was evident in his eyes as he looked up at his best mate.

"Shut up!" Ron exclaimed as he raised his sword and swung it at Harry. He barely had time to raise his shield to block the blow. When he did, something very strange happened.

Ron was suddenly gone, and Harry found himself peering through a very different set of eyes. It wasn't at all like when he was seeing things as Voldemort; the uncomfortable sensation of being housed in something that was pure evil was absent, and instead a warm familiarity washed over him. "Professor Lupin?" he heard his own hesitant (and feminine?) voice ask as his hands pushed a door that was cracked fully open.

"I haven't taught you in over two years, Hermione," he heard Remus Lupin answer over his shoulder with a slightly amused expression on his face. "That means I don't have to go through the formality of calling you 'Miss Granger' and you don't have to call me 'Professor' anymore. Why don't we try 'Remus', hm?"

This was Hermione's memory, he realized suddenly. Trying to take everything in, he realized she was at Grimmauld Place and from what Remus was saying, it had to be sometime earlier this summer. Why didn't he know she had visited Lupin? Why hadn't Remus mentioned it on Harry's birthday? "'Remus'? Alright then, Re...er, Mr. Lupin, I was wondering if I could ask you about something."

"Of course," Remus agreed quickly, stashing the papers he was looking at in a nearby desk drawer. Harry's mind began to wander. Why was Hermione showing him this? Was he supposed to be paying attention to something in particular, or should everything be obvious by the end?

"Do you have any pictures of Sirius?" he heard Hermione's voice ask, her tone slightly shaken. "Not recent ones. Older photographs, from when he was young. When he was closer to Harry's age. When..."

"James and Lily were alive?" Remus finished for her as her voice trailed off helplessly. "I believe so. It might take me a few days to gather them together. May I ask why you want them?"

"I just thought it might make a good birthday gift for Harry," Hermione explained and Harry could swear he heard her heart beat faster. "I know it's not my place to give him a gift like that..."

Lupin interrupted her, the teasing tone of his voice chiding her mildly. "On the contrary, I think it speaks volumes about the strength of your friendship that you would think to give him something of such sentimental value. It also says a lot about your courage that you're willing to ask someone who holds a strong sentimental attachment to them himself to give them up."

Harry found Hermione's eyes were no longer meeting Lupin's. "I would completely understand if you said 'no'. I'm sure I can find something else in time."

Remus pulled open a drawer below the one he had used earlier to stow some paperwork and produced a collection of photographs. "Here," he said, his voice warm and compassionate. "I got these out of storage less than a week after Sirius died. I can't seem to stop myself from looking at them and regretting...well, everything." Hermione looked up at Remus, who had a sad smile on his face. "I'm sorry I told you it would take a few days. It is rather difficult for me to part with them." Hermione began to protest, but Lupin stopped her. "Harry needs these more than I do, however. And I believe he would be more appreciative of them if they came from you." His eyes displayed a knowing glint. "You're getting closer, aren't you?"

Hermione seemed nervous all of a sudden. "Closer to what?"

"To Harry," he answered simply. "He needs you, Hermione. I don't think he knows quite how much yet. Be patient with him." Remus flashed her a mischievous grin. "Young men can be rather thick sometimes, you know."

Jarringly, Harry felt Ron's sword drag against his shield as his red-haired best mate pulled it away. He really didn't want to be back here again. "I know what I saw! You think I don't know what's going on? You're trying to steal her from me!" Ron was breathing heavily now and Harry watched his every motion carefully. "Thought if you showed her enough exciting heroics and thrilling adventures she'd swoon in your arms, didn't you?"

"You're being an idiot," Harry growled in reply. "Hermione's not the type to fall at my feet just because I've taken on a few Death Eaters. After all, she's done the same. And she knows I'm not just 'the brave hero'." Ron winced as Harry threw his words back in his face. "As for me stealing her from you, well that's just..." He struggled to explain the idiocy of this concept. "Oh, sod it. Lay the sword down, Ron. You know you're not really going to use it."

"I don't have a choice!" Ron exclaimed, sounding desperate for the first time. "Only one of us can save Hermione, Harry. That's the way the Amormortis Potion works. It has to be the one she loves and deep down you know that that's me." His face looked sheepish. "This isn't your fight, Harry. For once you can't save the day. Please, just let me win. Let me do this for her."

Harry's head was buzzing and it wasn't just from the blow he had taken to the head earlier or the blood loss from the wound in his side. What was going on here? Was Ron really the one who could save Hermione? 'Is he really the one she fancies?' Harry asked himself, not for the first time. "No," he replied simply, his voice sounding slightly hoarse to his own ears. "I won't leave until I'm sure Hermione's alright. I can't go back without her."

Harry had never seen Ron look so angry. The venom in his glare was something he had seen on Malfoy's face before, but which he never expected to see in the eyes of his best friend. As Ron thrust his sword in the general direction of Harry's skull, he was relieved to discover that the shield with the word 'KNOWLEDGE' on it blocked the blow rather admirably once again.

Just as before, Harry found himself in another one of Hermione's memories. He was in a room that he'd never been in before, yet it seemed intimately familiar somehow. There was a large shelf full of books along one of the walls and a double bed rested in the corner with a light blue and gray checkered comforter draped over it. 'This must be Hermione's bedroom,' Harry thought. Before he could have further thoughts about what being in Hermione's room might mean, he was interrupted by a slightly familiar female voice over his shoulder. "Did you get him home alright?"

Harry felt Hermione's head nod. "Yes," she replied, her voice almost a whisper. "No problems at all." Her tone gave the lie to that sentence.

The older woman's voice spoke her name but Hermione's cut in sharply before she could say anything soothing. "Don't! Don't tell me that he's sorry, Mum! He isn't; not really. And don't tell me that he's only worried about me, because I know that. It doesn't change anything." Hermione sat on her bed and then let her head hit the pillow. Her eyes faced the blank wall and Harry wondered idly why Hermione hadn't put anything up there: a poster of her favourite band or at the very least a little book shelf. It looked so empty and lifeless...

"Dad doesn't know," Hermione said aloud, her voice so soft that Harry wasn't sure she meant for anyone else to hear. "He doesn't know how much hurting Harry hurts me, too. I suppose...I guess he can't know." 'This must have been the night I had dinner with the Grangers,' Harry realized. 'I wouldn't have done that again for anything.'

"I think I do," Mrs. Granger said, the strangled sound of her voice making it clear she was holding back tears. "You love him, don't you?"

"I...I fancy Ron," Hermione said with a fake half-chuckle, as if her mother's words were ridiculous. Harry felt his heart tear open.

"Ron?" Mrs. Granger asked incredulously. "The other boy who you hang around with all of the time? The one who you never talk about? The one whose opinion you don't obsess over? The one who you didn't rush off in the middle of our family ski trip that we planned for months to go see? That Ron?" Hermione found herself nodding slowly. Her mother squeezed her hand tightly. "Hermione, you can lie to me. I'm the mother of a teenager; I almost expect it. But never lie to yourself."

"Ginny still fancies you, you know," Ron declared, his tone now vicious. Harry felt disoriented for a moment by the scene change, but steadied himself almost instantly. "Couldn't say why. The whole Boy-Who-Lived mystique, I reckon. Don't know why you couldn't have returned her feelings. Would have made it easier on all of us."

"Yes, I'm sure it would have," Harry replied sarcastically. "Sorry I couldn't be more obliging. I guess I just don't find schoolgirl crushes very appealing."

Ron's sword was now pointed at Harry's chest. He weakly held his shield up, hoping he looked ready for another attempted blow, although he certainly didn't feel it. "You're the most incredibly selfish git in the world, you know that?" Ron spat. "I don't expect you to care about how I feel, but have you even thought about what's best for her? In case you haven't noticed, danger seems to follow you around and get the people you care about killed. Hermione wouldn't even be here now if it weren't for you!" The truth of his words violently slammed into Harry and he began to wobble a bit, his weary body showing signs of fatigue.

"I...I didn't mean to..." Harry retorted feebly. His eyes were losing focus quickly and the lids above them were suddenly so heavy...

"Yeah, you never mean to," Ron snarled in response. "Best of intentions and all that. Doesn't much matter in the end, though, does it? Lives are still put in danger because of you. Is a bit of snogging with Hermione really worth her life?" What Ron was saying was starting to make a strange sort of sense, and Harry was feeling very sleepy, if only he could rest just for a little while, sleep sounded so good right now...

Harry abruptly found himself looking wide-eyed at Ron, although in a new set of surroundings: at the Burrow, in Ron's room. He watched with almost morbid fascination as Ron sat down on his bed, his legs managing to dangle over the edge despite his height. "What's this all about, Hermione?" he asked, his eyebrows raised in a curious expression.

Where was he now? And when? Could this have only been a few days ago, on his birthday? The conversation between the two of them that he had been dying to hear at the time? How far away that seemed now. Harry wanted to run away, but realized that he was trapped inside Hermione's memory as surely as if he were in a pensieve. He would be forced to watch as they...what? Confessed their feelings to each other? Would they actually snog?

"I need to talk to you," Hermione said, her eyes watching her hands carefully as she interwove her fingers together. "I need to ask you out."

"Ask me out?" Ron repeated dumbly. "You mean on a date?"

"Yes." Her voice was shaky yet determined. "I think we should go to Hogsmeade."

"What!" Ron's surprised voice came back. "Hermione, we aren't even back at Hogwarts yet. The first Hogsmeade trip won't be for months! And that's even if we get one, on account of Death Eaters and a certain very dark wizard who everyone knows is back now, including my prat of an older brother." Ron's disgust at the thought of Percy Weasley was evident. "Are you sure you've thought this through, Hermione?"

Hermione shook her head up and down, her eyes still not meeting Ron's. "Oh yes. I've taken everything into consideration. I even talked to Harry about it."

"You talked to Harry?" Ron asked, a little surprised. Did he like repeating everything she had just said as if it were the most puzzling thing he'd ever heard? "And he was fine with it?"

"Sure," Hermione answered softly. Well, so much for the thought that Hermione understood him. Harry was so completely not fine with the two of them dating that it should have been obvious to anyone who knew him even casually. Except for the little fact that he was desperately trying to hide this information from everyone.

"Alright," Ron said, slapping his hands against his knees as he stood and began walking across his room. "So you've thought this out. Let me see if this scenario sounds about right. We go to Hogsmeade. On the way there, we bicker for fifteen minutes about what we're going to do before we finally decide to go to Madame Puddifoot's, just like every other couple does, even though neither of us really wants to. You complain about the decor while I look awkward and nervous. Then I complain about your latest diatribe on something stupid like house elf rights, at which time you come back with..."

"House elf rights aren't stupid, Ronald," Hermione replied almost automatically.

"Perfect," Ron said, his arm pumping enthusiastically. "Then we both complain about the latest Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who you just know is going to be some sort of dangerous maniac, but that won't take more than a few minutes. By the time our drinks arrive, we'll inevitably be stuck talking about the only thing we really have in common: Harry. 'Can you believe Harry said this?' 'Were you there when Harry did that?' 'What else could possibly happen to Harry this week, after that incident with Peeves, Filch's cat and Snape's cauldron full of Sleeping Draught?'"

"That's just silly, Ron," Hermione replied, finally meeting his gaze. "We have other things in common besides Harry's friendship."

One of Ron's eyebrows shot up. "Oh yeah? Name one."

Hermione became very flustered all of a sudden when she realized that she couldn't. It wasn't often that Hermione didn't have the answer and she really didn't like the idea that Ron had been the one to stump her. "If you didn't want to go out with me, you could have just said 'no'. You didn't have to be so...so..." She struggled for the right word.

"What? Honest?" Ron shrugged. "No point in deceiving ourselves now, is there? Especially now." He moved closer to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "You're not thick, Hermione. You know I want to go out with you. I have for over a year now. I'm sure that probably made it onto your checklist somewhere, when you were 'taking everything into consideration'. Fear of rejection would be right out." Ron looked thoughtful for a moment. The expression didn't sit well on his face. "Tell me something. How did Harry really react when you told him you were going to ask me out on a date?"

"He called you 'Don'," Hermione noted with a small smile. "And said he hoped we would be really 'together happy'." Well, sure. It sounded bad if you took it out of context like that.

Ron smiled back, but his eyes seemed cold somehow. "You should really tell him, you know?"

The nervous fluttering of Hermione's heart turned into a steady pounding. "Tell him what?"

Ron looked away from her, his voice squeaking slightly. "That you're in love with him."

Harry was suddenly wide awake. His slumping shoulders rose and his right arm now bore the weight of the sword in his hand almost effortlessly. "You're not Ron," he declared, his voice hard and even.

"W...what?" Ron stammered. "Who do you think I am, Malfoy on polyjuice? Of course I'm Ron, you wanker!" His anxious voice began to break, and Harry wasn't buying the act anymore.

"Ron would trust me to save Hermione," Harry declared as he moved aggressively towards the red-haired impostor. "Ron wouldn't have been able to see us kissing under the invisibility cloak. And I don't think the real Ron would have ever used the phrase '"Boy-Who-Lived" mystique'."

"Mad-Eye Moody," Ron explained, although his face now clearly showed apprehension. "He can see through the invisibility cloak. He told me..."

Harry shook his head. "You said it was Tonks and Lupin who were following us around, not Moody. And you're not Ron." And at that, Ron disappeared, leaving only a stone with the word 'DOUBT' written on it. Harry picked it up and then let it fall from his hand. "But even if you had been, I would have won anyway."

Harry quietly approached Hermione's prone form, her breathing slow and erratic. What was he supposed to do now? If this were a fairy tale, he supposed he would simply kiss her and she would awake. But this wasn't a fairy tale. This was real life. Well, actually it was the inside of Hermione's mind. The same principle applied, though.

"Hermione," he whispered, hoping she had once again left him some clue as to how to get through this. He wasn't sure he could take much more of watching her so helpless, so vulnerable... "You've got to wake up," Harry insisted, his hands running along the side of her arms and eventually finding their way into her own. "You have to. I couldn't bear it if you died because of... I couldn't take it if you died."

Her eyes opened wide and she breathed in sharply, startling Harry. "Hermione?" he asked tentatively.

"Harry," she answered back, the word seeming to answer all of his questions and erase his doubts. His eyes searched hers and a smile crossed their faces simultaneously. Their words were nervous, hurried and unnecessary. "Are you...?" "I'm fine. Where are we?" "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

His hands hadn't left hers and neither of them made a move to break away. "Was there something I did that... that brought you back?" Harry asked tentatively. "I wasn't quite sure how to wake you and...I suppose I must have done something right, but I don't know what..."

"You're here, Harry," Hermione answered, adoration glowing in her eyes. "That was all it took. That's all it ever takes." Harry very much wanted to kiss her just then, but she put her finger on his lips to stop him. "Harry..."

"What?" he asked, confused.

"I think we're waking up." 


	17. The first

Harry Potter's eyes opened sleepily in the darkness and for a moment he wondered where he had fallen asleep, since he clearly wasn't in Dudley's second bedroom at Number 4 Privet Drive. It took him a minute before he realized several things. For one, he was somewhere completely unfamiliar to him. Secondly, Hermione was right next to him. Under different circumstances, waking up next to Hermione might have been a rather pleasant surprise, if it weren't for the third thing he realized. Atlas Filch and Violet Mogle stood in one corner of the room, his lit wand barely illuminating their very different faces.

"You two," Harry stammered in exclamation. "You're...you're behind this, aren't you? And all that rubbish about Pinnix and Moseby, that was all an act, wasn't it?"

"Brilliant, Potter," Atlas Filch growled. "You've figured us out. We're sitting here in a locked room in the dark with you lot because we're criminal masterminds." His stony visage fixated on Hermione. "What's a smart lass like you doing with a daft git like him?"

Hermione shot him a strange look. "It's the glasses. They make him look cute, don't you think?" She rose to her feet and stood right in front of the gargantuan wizard and the petite blonde. "So would either of you like to explain exactly what's going on?"

"Terry," Violet started to explain, her voice taking on a slightly defeated tone. "He took us here. I don't know what's wrong with him. I think he's...insane or something."

Atlas shrugged. "Nah. Not insane. Just young and stupid." He eyed Harry suspiciously. "I can see where you'd be confused, though. They do look a lot alike."

"Hey!" Harry exclaimed indignantly, although his attention was soon diverted by Hermione attempting an 'Alohomora' on the door with her wand drawn. Nothing happened. She then grabbed the handle and began turning it furiously.

"Believe it or not, we've already tried both of those things," Atlas Filch grumbled. "I've also attempted to apparate out, but to no avail. If this is anything like last time, the entire place is likely warded against most kinds of wizardry. Except maybe a few simple spells and, of course, blood magic."

"'Like last time?'" Harry and Hermione repeated together. Harry alone continued speaking. "What do you know about last time? What happened?"

Atlas Filch's frame slouched slightly against the wall. "I met Frank Nichten-Teach in the fall before that summer. He had a business proposition for me. I was an amateur herbologist and well...there's never been much call for those. Mostly we just run muggle flower shops and try not to seem crazy." Harry looked exasperated. He hadn't asked for the older wizard's life story. "The Serpent's Tooth made money for us much faster than we expected. Frank saved me from a life of total obscurity and I was naturally very grateful. So much so that I did something very stupid."

Filch's eyes glazed over for a moment and Harry nearly had to prod him to continue. "A young man approached me. Introduced himself as Frank Nichten-Teach's estranged son. He said he'd heard I was having problems with my flower shop, short-staffed and all that, and was wondering if I could offer him a job. He claimed he was looking to reconnect with his father; that if he had a respectable job, he could go back to him and show him what he'd done with his life." Atlas let a small smile form on his lips. "I tried to warn him that working in a flower shop wasn't so respectable, but between his pleading and a certain lady friend of mine doing her level best to convince me, I caved. I agreed to introduce him to the man I had running the shop while I was working at the Serpent's Tooth."

"Reginald Evans," Harry whispered breathlessly.

"Your grandfather, Potter. Yes." Atlas Filch sighed. "The lady friend in question was Rosella Pinnix, a Death Eater. Although I didn't know that at the time, of course. And the young man was Terry Nichten-Teach."

"What!" Hermione exclaimed at roughly the same time Harry did. "How? How could Terry still be so young-looking after all this time? Is he a vampire or...?"

Filch nodded in Violet Mogle's direction. "Best to show them the picture, love." Looking sheepish, Violet withdrew a photograph from the inside of her skimpy top and handed it to Harry.

"This was what I found that day that you saw me in the Serpent's Tooth," she explained fearfully. "If I had known what it meant at the time, I would have shown you, I swear it."

Harry barely heard what she said, as his eyes were mesmerized by the picture in front of him. In the black and white photo, Terry Nichten-Teach stood on the left side of the frame, sporting an RAF jacket while another young man shook his hand, his eyes staring intensely back at Terry. The other boy was instantly recognizable to Harry. "Tom Riddle," he declared softly.

"This must have been taken over fifty years ago," Hermione assessed as she looked at the picture over Harry's shoulder. "If Voldemort knew Terry when they were growing up, does that make him some sort of dark wizard?"

"No, I'm afraid it's much worse than that," Atlas Filch assessed grimly. "He's a muggle. He's Frank Nichten-Teach, in fact, as he was as a young man. Preserved forever in that photograph."

"Preserved. Just like Voldemort was in Riddle's diary," Harry said, the pieces suddenly fitting together in his mind. He promptly tore the photo to shreds. "We have to destroy it, the way I did with the diary back in second year. It was the only thing that stopped Voldemort from killing Ginny."

Atlas Filch cleared his throat. "I was speaking figuratively. Terry was not literally preserved in the photograph. I believe he has a much more powerful object at his disposal which allows him to accomplish what he has."

Hermione's eyes narrowed as Harry guiltily placed the pieces of the torn photo on a nearby table. "What are you talking about now? What object?"

"A green gemstone," Atlas explained. "I'm afraid I don't much know what it does, except that it's filled with dark magic and that Terry never goes anywhere without it."

"This is all fascinating," Harry stated without a hint of sarcasm, "but shouldn't we be doing more to escape? I mean, if this Auburn Summer thing is happening all over again, there should be four muggle victims out there, waiting around to die at the hands of Terry Nichten-Teach. We can't just sit here!"

"Actually, Harry," Violet interjected, her voice shaky, "they're counting on us to just sit here. We're the victims."

"Of course," Hermione exclaimed in her 'I've figured it out' tone of voice. "There were some experiments done where instead of four muggles, four people of different bloodlines were used in the ritual sacrifice."

"Let me guess," Harry groaned. "One muggle, one muggleborn, one half-blood and one pureblood." Both Hermione and Atlas Filch nodded in the pale light emanating from his wand. "I guess you're the pureblood, then," Harry remarked as he gestured towards Atlas, "and you would have been last time, too. One of the Evans' would have been the muggle," he swallowed the lump in his throat quickly, "and my parents were the half-blood and the muggleborn."

"Brilliant deduction, Mr. Potter," Atlas Filch commented with a trace of dry humor. "Would have been even more impressive if you'd also noticed that the door is now open." Harry turned to see that the door confining them to this room was now wide open. "A bit of wandless magic did it, I think, sometime during your little tirade."

Hermione tentatively stuck her head through the door. "Either that or this is all a trap."

"Maybe," Harry agreed thoughtfully. "But I think I'm willing to risk it. It's better than being cooped up in this room all night, waiting to be slaughtered."

In turn, Hermione, Violet Mogle and Atlas Filch followed Harry outside. Hermione and Filch had their wands drawn, although judging from what Atlas had said earlier, Harry wondered what good they would do. He was starting to not feel so bad about only being able to wield a rubber chicken and a fake sword.

Harry stopped suddenly in the middle of the hallway as his eyes caught sight of a picture hanging above a furnace vent. The figures in it were unmistakably his grandparents, his mother Lily and his aunt Petunia, looking proud, radiant and sour, respectively. "What is this place?" Harry asked no one in particular, his voice catching slightly in his throat.

"This used to be your grandparents' house," Atlas Filch explained bitterly. "The killer does always return to the scene of the crime, you know."

Harry temporarily forgot about their situation for a moment and tried to touch the picture frame, maybe even see if he could get it down and take it with him. He stopped when an electric shock ran through his body. Harry cried out slightly in pain. Hermione shot him a sympathetic look.

"Lily probably charmed it so it could never be taken down," Hermione mused. "She must have been a really clever witch." Wincing just a litte, Harry nodded and the four of them moved down the hallway, towards a light in the distance. As they approached the open doorway, Atlas Filch hunkered back in the shadows as Violet Mogle hugged the wall. Harry and Hermione moved as close as they dared, hoping to hear as much as they could before they made their move. Of course, they hadn't quite figured out what 'their move' was yet...

"No!" they all heard Terry Nichten-Teach's voice bellow. "The Stone of Preservation does not lie. This tells me nothing." Harry's eyes peered carefully into the room. It appeared to be your standard muggle living room, although not quite as spotless as the Dursleys'. 'Obviously there's no hated nephew living here,' Harry groused to himself. Terry Nichten-Teach, still wearing his wizard's robes (although now they made him look maniacal rather than comical), paced about the room, glaring hatefully at Lloyd Moseby and Elmira Pinnix. "I've replayed it all from the beginning. Nobody dies. Enough blood pours out to knock them out, but not to kill them. So why didn't it work!"

"I...I don't know," Elmira Pinnix answered, her voice a withering combination of deference and disgust. "My mother never said anything about...but I suppose she must have known. I tried to get it out of Atlas Filch, but he was so resistant to everything, I..."

The younger version of Frank Nichten-Teach let out a frustrated roar. "If we can't kill them, I can't become a wizard. If I can't become a wizard, then so much of Tom's plans will be worthless. He won't be happy. And what's more, I won't be happy."

Lloyd Moseby screwed up his nose. "Must you continuously refer to the Dark Lord as Tom? It's quite disconcerting."

Terry Nichten-Teach's stare was icy. Harry remembered the menacing look in young Tom Riddle's eyes when they'd met briefly in the Chamber of Secrets and had always thought nothing could rival it. This did. "I want you two to understand that we are on the same side. However, I am not one of Riddle's Death Munchers. When I signed up to follow Tom, there was nobody else who cared what a brilliant wizard he was. I gave him something that nobody else would."

"Devotion?" Elmira Pinnix tried. "Friendship?"

"That," Terry answered with a wicked smile, "and a certain old family heirloom. Something that only someone with the scope of his imagination could fully appreciate." His thoughts seemed to wander, but within a moment he had turned his attention back to the two Death Eaters. "Fetch them. Even if we still can't kill them, we can certainly bleed them almost to death. That's fun in its own right."

Looking slightly disgruntled, Moseby and Pinnix complied, only to run into the four of them before they had gone ten feet. "We decided to save you the trouble," Harry announced flippantly. He stepped into the room in a few quick strides, Hermione following behind quickly. After a few moments, Atlas Filch followed suit.

"Ah, Mr. Potter," Terry said with a dementedly pleased expression on his face. "I believe we've met before. It must have slipped my mind that I had already met your parents. In fact, I got to know them rather well. You never really know someone until you've seen them in a life or death situation, you know." He clutched his hands behind his back and approached Harry slowly. "Shame I couldn't do them both in, but I've since heard that Tom finished the job for me. Is that right? I suppose you could give me a firsthand account, seeing as you were there." 

Harry fumed silently, but Hermione had a retort ready. "Maybe he should tell you the part about how Voldemort couldn't even kill a baby. How it reduced him to nothing for ten years." Terry flinched visibly. "Or did his Death Eaters leave that part out?"

"You really are a clump of worthless scum, Terry," Atlas Filch spat. "It's a miracle Frank turned out to be the man he was. Felt guilty every day, once he found out what you'd done here. He even came to visit Potter and that muggle family that raised him."

"Do you think you can humiliate me with tales of how I became a sniveling weakling in my later years? It won't work." His eyes gleamed ferociously, and his voice was shaken. Obviously, what Atlas had said had affected him. "Bloody hell. Kill them already. We can find others in the time remaining and maybe we can figure out what went wrong the time before." Lloyd and Elmira just looked at him dumbly. "I said kill them!"

Looking uninspired yet determined, the two Death Eaters turned to face the unlikely quartet. Harry moved towards them cautiously. Moseby sneered at him, knowing that the fact that he had not yet produced a wand was because he didn't have one to produce. As he strode towards the malevolent duo, however, Harry did pull out his fake sword and, with one swift chopping motion, rapped Elmira Pinnix's right hand, making her drop her wand. Simultaneously, from behind him, Hermione yelled "Expelliarmus" with her wand pointed straight at Lloyd Moseby.

Atlas Filch's theory about complex spells not working inside this house seemed accurate, as Moseby merely grunted and fell back slightly in response to Hermione's attack. Pinnix appeared to be stunned slightly, but otherwise none the worse for wear. As she made her way towards her fallen wand, Harry grabbed her arms and shoved her hard into a well-placed easy chair.

Filch must have decided that it would be worthless to use his wand, as he tackled Lloyd Moseby and sent him sprawling to the ground. The two of them struggled on the carpet, and Atlas Filch's edge in physical size seemed to be winning the day, as the much larger man had the Death Eater pinned down on the floor. Harry also saw that Hermione was moving closer to Terry Nichten-Teach. His eyes followed her curiously and he might have considered facing Terry with her, except for the swift kick in the chest he had just taken from Elmira Pinnix.

Harry's big disadvantage in this fight was negated by the fact that he was standing over Pinnix's wand, thus making them both wandless. He dare not attempt to pick it up and use it against her, however; not after the incident when he had used Moseby's wand at the Serpent's Tooth. There were other disadvantages, though. He didn't know what kind of a fighter Elmira Pinnix was, or if she had any kind of enchanted weaponry hidden up her sleeve. Plus, Harry had never physically attacked a girl before. (Unless he decided to count Millicent Bulstrode, which would require him to actually think of Bulstrode as a girl.) 

Despite the knight costume he was wearing, Harry decided that chivalry was dead. He attempted to punch her jawline, only to clumsily miss as she ducked berneath the blow. Elmira Pinnix also had the time and foresight to kick Harry's legs out from under him. Apparently, Voldemort had taken the time to train this Death Eater in the martial arts. Although it was difficult to move with his chest encased in metal, Harry did manage to land on Pinnix's wand. Elmira moved to grab it from underneath his leg, but as she stooped to the floor, Violet Mogle maneuvered herself close to the Death Eater and sprayed her in the face with something.

"Pepper spray," Violet explained matter-of-factly. "I carry it around with me wherever I go."

Harry examined her skimpy genie outfit in a non-leering way. "Where do you carry it in that thing?" She didn't seem obliged to answer. "Never mind. Just help me up." After a few seconds of struggle, Harry rose to his feet and approached Elmira Pinnix. As she rose blindly to her feet, Harry smacked her head roughly with his plastic sword. She fell back to the floor, unconscious. 'One down,' Harry thought.

Harry's eyes found Terry Nichten-Teach standing close to Hermione, the green gemstone in his hand dangled before her eyes. Across the room (and much closer to where Harry was now standing), Atlas Filch and Lloyd Moseby still grappled with each other mercilessly. Indecision flooded him. 'Hermione's a great witch, and Nichten-Teach is only a muggle. I'm sure she can handle him. Whereas Atlas Filch looks like he's having a heart attack over there fighting Moseby. However, if I'm wrong and something happens to Hermione...' His thoughts trailed off. He knew what he had to do.

Taking large but careful strides across the living room that used to belong to his muggle grandparents, Harry removed the rubber chicken from his pocket, took careful aim and, pulling back on its rubbery neck, shot it in the general direction of Moseby. As he had hoped, Fred and George's practical joke hit its target, causing a nearby table lamp to fall on Moseby's head. 'That makes it two,' Harry added a little smugly.

Harry made his way quickly to Hermione's side, facing down Terry Nichten-Teach with a confident look in her eye. "You shouldn't come any closer," he taunted Harry, the green stone in his hand flashing around impressively. "This little gem really is quite powerful."

"You're a muggle," Harry needlessly informed him with a bemused grin. "What could you possibly do to us?"

A viciousness flooded the eyes of the eternally young muggle. "I could bleed your essence into any object in this room until you were nothing more than a shell. But please, continue to condescend to me."

"I can't help but notice that you're not doing that, though," Hermione retorted bravely. "So what exactly is your plan? If we stay here long enough, will more Death Eaters show up?"

"I don't need Riddle's cannon fodder," Terry growled. "I've been with him for sixty years, kept safe by the Stone of Preservation. I'll return to him, faithful as always and wait until that moment when he has need of me again."

"You-Know-Who hasn't let you out of your cage for twenty years," Atlas Filch commented smugly from the back of the room. "How long 'til you think you'll see the light of day again?"

Terry Nichten-Teach walked away from Harry slightly to face the large wizard. "For me, it will only be an instant. For you," his grin was pure evil, "it may seem like an eternity." Pivoting on his heel abruptly, Terry turned his eyes towards Hermione. "Oh, Miss Granger, there was one other thing I think you should know." Before Harry could stop him, he whispered something in her right ear...and then disappeared.

Harry was already on his way toward Hermione when the young man's image vanished from sight and the Stone of Preservation fell to the ground. His eyes did a brief once-over of Hermione, making certain nothing had happened to her. Harry then bent down on one knee and retrieved the emerald-coloured gemstone. "I can't believe he just left this here."

Hermione's eyes met his own. "Harry, I...I don't think he had a choice."

Before Harry could reply, several figures burst through the doors. Pocketing the Stone of Preservation on instinct, he watched as Hermione and Atlas Filch both drew their wands...only to see Charles 'Three-Arm Charlie' Fournier leading a team of Aurors into the house.

"Oh, bloody hell," Fournier called out. "I was told there were Death Eaters here." His eyes went from the still forms of Lloyd Moseby and Elmira Pinnix to Harry and Hermione. "Guess you took care of 'em yourselves. You kids just can't stay out of trouble, can you?" The two Hogwarts students shared a knowing look. Neither of them were currently inclined to disagree. 


	18. Denouement

Harry watched Hermione in the moonlight, contemplating her features as she stood motionless, carefully examining the house in which they had just been held captive. The house that had been home to his muggle grandparents a lifetime ago. Her expression was weary, but she appeared to be searching for something almost obsessively and Harry couldn't help but wonder what it was. He didn't feel comfortable approaching her, though, so he simply continued to observe her.

After a few moments of silence, Hermione asked, "Who do you think lives here now?" Her voice was almost too soft to be heard, but Harry's senses were heightened by the rush of adrenaline that had coursed through his body over the last hour or so.

"I...I don't know." Harry inched closer to her almost instinctively, as if responding to some unspoken invitation. "Does it matter?"

Hermione inhaled sharply. "Someone must live here. The grounds are very well maintained. The house has been newly painted. I doubt Death Eaters would have fixed it up this well, if it had been abandoned." She refused to meet Harry's gaze, even though he was now standing close to her. "Do you think they're dead now? Do you think these Death Eaters even bothered to...kill them?"

"Hermione, I..." Harry's voice died in his throat. "The Aurors will find out. They'll investigate. Everything."

She chuckled mirthlessly. "Harry, you heard what Three-Arm Charlie thought of muggles. I doubt very much that he cares about what happened to the owners of this house."

Harry extended his right hand to touch her left shoulder, giving it a reassuring rub. "Maybe not. But I get the feeling he'll try to find out anyway. He strikes me as very professional. As much as a bloke with an extra arm growing out of his chest can, at least." He smiled weakly until Hermione did the same. "The fact that you care, that you even think about..." Harry ran his hand down her arm in lieu of finishing the thought. "It means a lot. To me, at least."

Hermione turned to face him, finally. Her eyes were teary, but there was a conviction behind them, a strength, that Harry found nearly overpowering. It made him want to hold her, but he resisted the urge. There was so much they needed to talk about first, but at the moment he just didn't care that much. Harry soon discovered that his head was leaning closer and closer to her own, as if some center of gravity were drawing both of them in and they were helpless to stop it...

The kiss itself was gentler than before, a light brush of lips that didn't really satisfy either of them. Hermione held up her hand to softly touch his chin. "We probably shouldn't," she whispered, her voice filled with wonder.

Harry flinched as though he had been struck. "Why not?"

Hermione's head nodded slightly in Harry's direction. "Because Mr. Fournier needs to take our statement." Harry turned around to see Three-Arm Charlie standing behind him, a reproachful glare in his eye.

"C'mere," he growled, his right-most hand grabbing Harry's left forearm. "Kids. Told 'em it was the muggle what done it. Did they listen? Nah. Had to go find out for themselves, make me fill out paperwork. I swear, when Britannicus gets back..." His voice died away in a string of incoherent muttering.

It took about twenty minutes for Harry and Hermione to give nearly identical accounts of the ordeal they had faced that night. This seemed to satisfy the old Auror and he soon found himself gleefully preoccupied with escorting Lloyd Moseby and Elmira Pinnix to a holding cell somewhere. When Hermione found Harry again he was standing alone with his hands stuffed firmly in his jeans pockets, staring out at the stars. She seemed nervous for no reason Harry could see. "Nice night, huh?" Hermione ventured.

Harry nodded slightly, his eyes never leaving the skyline. "I suppose. If you like being nearly killed by the memory of a sixteen-year-old muggle and a couple of Death Eaters."

"Well, no," Hermione continued nervously. "That part wasn't so pleasant. But I liked...the other things."

"You mean when you had that near death experience and I had to save you using legilimency?" Harry teased.

"The part where we kissed," Hermione cut in insistently. Harry could feel the intensity of her gaze, despite the distance between them. "Although...I don't quite understand..." She chewed her bottom lip and her forehead screwed up in concentration. "Harry, what did it mean?"

"What did it mean?" Harry repeated, as if this were the most ridiculous question ever asked of him. For some reason, however, he couldn't come up with an acceptible answer.

Hermione seemed desperate to end the silence between them. "We have been spending a lot of time together this summer. We're both sixteen now. And, well, I'm a girl and you're a boy and...it's natural to feel something, isn't it?" She swallowed and shook her head slightly. "But we've known each other a long time and it would be stupid to throw it all away for a summer fling."

Harry felt as though his insides were slowly sinking into his shoes. Was she about to reject him? In any case, he had to agree that jeopardizing what he had with Hermione over a short-lived romantic relationship would be foolish. "Yeah," Harry found himself agreeing without really wanting to, "it would."

Her hand reached for his shoulder and held it firmly and she turned him around slightly to face her. "You mean the world to me, Harry, you know you do. The way I feel about you...whatever it is that's betwen us...sometimes I think it's the strongest thing I've ever felt. Like something bigger than both of us saw something missing in our lives and wanted you to have me and me to have you. Always. And it doesn't matter how many Viktor Krums or Cho Changs come and go, we'll both still have this...connection. We'll still be the most important people in each other's lives." Hermione's eyes glistened and her voice went slightly deeper. "Really, Harry, what's a teenage romance compared to that?"

Harry's eyes dropped to somewhere around her neck and he began blinking rapidly. "You're right, Hermione. We..." A voice inside him screamed in protest. No. He would not give up this easily. He was Harry Potter, for pity's sake. "There is one problem with all of that, though. A rather large one."

"What's that?" Hermione whispered anxiously.

"I really want to kiss you right now." Before he knew it, their foreheads were touching and he was kissing her again, this time for all he was worth. Given the roller coaster ride his emotions had taken that night, the experience was all-consuming, particularly when she began kissing him back with a ferocity he hadn't thought possible from her. Eventually they broke apart, a slightly stunned expression evident on their faces.

"Oh," Hermione exclaimed lightly, her voice slightly strained. "So...so that's the problem, is it?"

Harry nodded slowly. "I was hoping you might help me with it."

There was a playful twinkle in Hermione's eye. "Hmm. Well, I would suggest more kissing, but that might only make the problem worse...of course it all depends on whether I'm a good kisser or not..."

"Yeah, that wouldn't be the way to go, then," Harry replied as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "There is something I was considering...but it probably wouldn't work."

"We have to consider every possibility, Harry," Hermione scolded him and then pressed her lips firmly against his again before he could say anything else. "After all," she said breathily, "this is a serious problem."

Harry looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, even though you're a fantastic kisser, maybe...maybe you're not any good at snogging."

Hermione appeared to ponder this in her mind. "You know, that could be true. I've never snogged anyone before."

"Really?" Harry asked, his eyebrows rising in surprise. "Not even Viktor Krum?"

"Viktor who?" she questioned with a frown and within a matter of seconds they were testing Harry's snogging theory. Alas, this one turned out to be a bust as well. Hermione was excellent at snogging and from the noises she was making, he wasn't bad at it either.

"I don't think this is working, Hermione," Harry complained in a mock whine. "Now I want to kiss you and snog you. A lot. And maybe not even in that order."

"Oh my," Hermione gasped as she ran her fingers up his neck and brought them to rest in his hair. "I haven't been much of a help to you at all, have I?"

He grinned widely. "Well, I wouldn't say that. We could study the problem further, though," Harry suggested, his own hands busy rubbing her back gently. "But I think you might have to be my girlfriend again. For real this time."

The brightness in Hermione's eyes and the hint of a smile that had played around her mouth for the last few minutes vanished abruptly. "Is that really what you want, Harry?"

"Yes," Harry answered quickly. "Is...is that what you want, too? I mean, what about everything you said about our friendship meaning more?"

"It does mean more," Hermione insisted. "More than just your average teenage crush, at any rate. Harry, if we do this, it isn't going to be like any other relationship we've had before. I already trust you with my life. I'm completely sure of you; more sure than I've ever been about anything. And we haven't even gone on our first date yet."

"So I guess the Youth Masque didn't count as a date," Harry muttered under his breath.

Much to Harry's delight, Hermione's smile was back. "No, Harry. It didn't." She moved one of her hands to stroke his cheek. "The point is this: what we have isn't worth risking over a few trips to Hogsmeade and random bits of snogging in the Gryffindor common room. But it is worth trading for something better, something stronger than what we have now. Do you think you're ready for that?"

Harry gulped. His chest was already so tight with emotions that he felt like it was going to burst. Could there be something stronger than what he had with Hermione now? Wasn't it worth finding out if there was? "I...I don't know," he stammered. "But I think I'd like to see if maybe I am. That is, if you..."

"Yes," Hermione interrupted forcefully, the smile on her face growing wider. Their lips met again and Harry realized that the other kisses had been tempered by something hesitant within each of them. This one was...well, he would have used some sort of 'great' adjective if only his brain had been working properly. When they parted slightly, Hermione's eyes locked onto his own. "Why do you keep worrying about how I feel? I would have thought it would have been obvious by now."

"I think worrying about how you feel goes along with wanting to date you," Harry explained breathlessly. "Also, you did ask Ron out only a few days ago. Was that just a fluke or...?" He couldn't bring himself to accuse her of leading his red-haired best friend on or teasing him. 'Or of choosing me just because Ron turned her down,' his mind added pessimistically.

"No," she replied emphatically. "No, that wasn't... With Ron, I was trying to..." Hermione released a sigh. "It's hard to explain."

Harry couldn't let himself get this far not to find out how she felt about Ron. "Try."

"I've never thought that I was good enough for you, Harry," Hermione declared, her eyes darting quickly downward. "It may sound stupid, but...I didn't think you would ever think of me that way. When Viktor and I broke up, I knew it would be just the same with anyone else I dated. There would be so much jealousy directed towards you and nobody would understand why you were so important to me if I didn't fancy you. Or worse, they would figure out that I did fancy you." Harry's heart thumped loudly in his chest. "But Ron, he understands that we're just best friends. And there has been this...thing...between us for a while."

Harry screwed up his nose. "You mean the bickering? The constant belittling of each other? The fact that you disagree about absolutely everything?"

Hermione smiled slightly up at him. "Was I an idiot to think that that might be love?"

"You're not an idiot," Harry replied automatically. "But between that and the fact that your plan was based around the idea that Ron wouldn't be jealous of me, I'd say it was pretty well doomed to failure from the start." Harry released a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "So you don't fancy Ron?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, Harry." When she saw his shoulders slump in relief, she flashed him a winning grin. "It was you all along. I tried hard to feel that way about Ron, but I just couldn't get over you. To be honest, I don't think I really wanted to."

Harry squeezed her lightly. A mixed sensation of relief and hope washed over him, and he began to slowly realize that he was feeling something he hadn't for quite some time. 'Since Sirius died,' Harry's mind added. Happiness. A sense of complete elation that transcended everything. "So... I guess this means we're together, then."

"Harry," she said with a slight laugh as she threw herself fully into his arms. "We've always been together. Only now it's a romantic togetherness."

Harry let out a hearty chuckle. "I thought I was the only one who used that phrase."

They just held each other for a moment, enjoying their new relationship while it was in its infancy. Before there were problems and misunderstandings and the reality of what it all meant started to seep in. "The Stone of Preservation," Hermione said aloud, as if her mouth just suddenly decided to babble something she was thinking. "I suppose I should make some cute remark about it being in your pocket or you being happy to see me, but... what are you planning to do with it? Why didn't you just leave it for the Aurors?"

"I was thinking about giving it to you," Harry answered honestly. "At least until we figure out where it came from and what it does. I suppose I could always take it to Dumbledore, though." His tone said he didn't think that was the greatest idea in the world.

Hermione shook her head. "No. That's fine. There are some great books about gemstones and crystals with magical properties that I picked up on one of our earlier Hogsmeade trips last year. I'll look through it to see what I can find." The notion of turning it in to the proper authorities died quickly in both of their minds. Auburn Summer had been their adventure; their trial by fire. They had earned the right to use their own judgement. Harry was certain that Hermione would be every bit as responsible with this as he had been with the magic items entrusted to him.

"Fournier," a gruff Auror's voice called from behind them. "There's been an incident involving a muggle with a magical object at a place called 'the Serpent's Tooth'. The chief thinks it might be related to what happened here."

Harry turned in time to see that Three-Arm Charlie's curiosity was piqued. "Yeah? What kind of magical object?"

"An invisibility cloak," he answered grimly. Harry wanted to kick himself. He had forgotten all about his cloak. "Apparently he's passing it off as his costume to something called the 'young mask'. Took first prize, I believe."

'I knew it,' Harry grumbled to himself. He turned back to see that Hermione had been listening to the whole thing and was now suppressing her amusement very poorly. "I guess we should go back to the Serpent's Tooth," Harry remarked glumly.

"We had to go that way to pick up the moped anyway," Hermione agreed with a smile. She took his hand and intertwined her fingers with his own as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "Come on."

"Hermione," Harry began with hesitation in his voice. "Terry said something to you, didn't he? Before he disappeared, that is." Her head nodded quickly. "What was it?"

Hermione frowned. "He must have been out of his mind. He actually offered me a place at Voldemort's side." She stopped walking and turned to look Harry in the eye. "Then, there at the last, he said that 'the future of magic lies with muggles'. Honestly, what could that mean?" 


	19. Author's Note

Thanks for the kind reviews! Special thanks to anyone who followed this story from Mugglenet to here. I have started writing a sequel of sorts (a sixth year fic) and will be posting it soon. It's called "Harry Potter and the Alma Fuerza Cetro". I hope you enjoy it! Thanks again! 


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